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Thursday, September 04, 2008

"If after I am free a friend of mine gave a feast, and did not invite me to it, I should not mind a bit. I can be perfectly happy by myself. With freedom, flowers, books, and the moon, who could not be perfectly happy? Besides, feasts are not for me any more. I have given too many to care about them. That side of life is over for me, very fortunately, I dare say. But if after I am free a friend of mine had a sorrow and refused to allow me to share it, I should feel it most bitterly. If he shut the doors of the house of mourning against me, I would come back again and again and beg to be admitted, so that I might share in what I was entitled to share in. If he thought me unworthy, unfit to weep with him, I should feel it as the most poignant humiliation, as the most terrible mode in which disgrace could be inflicted on me."

Oscar Wilde
De profundis

2 comments:

JC said...

This quote reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend I made this summer while in hospital. I was feeling very unwell and didn't want their concern and got this very message.

Ana said...

I didn't know Wilde was that known. I took this from the book which I like and have highlighted many passages.
You made me realize that he was talking about the sorrows of life and not about the depressed sorrow.
When we are depressed it's usual that we don't want to share our feelings because it's so hard to feel all that pain without apparent reason and full of indescribable symptoms that it seems nobody can understand and share it with us.
People start giving advices such as: "take a walk, you're young and..."
I wonder how would they feel if we had the guts to say:
"-Life has no sense and I feel like dieing."
When we start crying, even with a "normal" reason, it's usual to hear "-Don't cry!" - "-Ok! I will not cry but you have to remember that next time you feel like laughing you will not."
It's hard to get help when depressed.
Perhaps the best way is only saying what we feel and find someone who only listen with sympathy.