Existential Angst? Or just a bit fed up?

I’ve been in a strange sort of mood all week – listless, lethargic, without being able to work out why. This culminated yesterday in an unusual feeling for me: complete lack of interest in anything, world weariness, ennui. Shelley’s poem, Ozymadias, kept running through my head:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

I suppose you could sum up my mood thus:
Interviewer: How would you describe your life sir?
Dalai Lama: I’ve had better….

So, as Russell Brand would I’m sure advise, I started to think of ways of taking my mind off the thought that we’re all going to die. I did briefly consider attending an orgy, but since a) I live miles from the nearest tower block; b) I’m sure I’d end up eating the nibbles and c) my husband might object (to the orgy, not the nibbles) I discarded that idea.

My nearest and dearest were no help. When, in response to what I took to be a sympathetic enquiry into my apparent glumness, I said I understood what Nietzsche was on about, hubby grinned and said ‘Oh, I know him – he keeps the Dog and Duck…’

I knew I could change my state of mind – NLP has taught me that. Unfortunately it has also taught me I need to want to change my state, and be prepared to act positively to do so – and I could even be bothered to want to do anything positive. So I did mindless stuff for a while. Then hubby’s male problem-solving approach came to the fore and he suggested a walk to the beach – usually the most relaxing, soothing thing for me. And admittedly, a couple of hours in the sun, swimming in the sea and relaxing on the beach, did alleviate things a bit.

And that was enough to open my mind to the wisdom of ‘Souls of poets dead and gone’ – so when I got home I turned to my old friends Byron, Shelley and Keats. And of course, Keats had it:

But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Imprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.

She dwells with Beauty -Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine:
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.

In other words – if you’re not melancholy at times, you won’t appreciate what it is to be happy.

And today, I’m happy – and have realised I was actually reacting to a couple of weeks in which I’ve been physically working hard yet not stretched mentally, and have not read anything challenging – so my brain was demanding intellectual food.

Pass me that volume of poetry……