Is it important to feel sad sometimes?

Yesterday, I was hit by a lot of sadness. It came on very suddenly. I was outside, sitting in the sun with some good friends, a successful week behind me and a free weekend ahead, graduation in 34 days - and all of a sudden, I just felt desperately lonely. Lonely while surrounded by people, people whom I like and who like me in return. It was the craziest feeling.

And it got me to thinking. I left those friends and sat in a café for a while, thinking about the definition of a Galois extension, copying the theorems and definitions from my algebra class in a nice color-coded fashion on to a sort of index/table of contents page I keep for my notes (as I am wont to do at the end of the week), and I realized that sitting alone in a café in Berkeley doing abstract algebra at 8 p.m. on a Friday seemed pretty pathetic. On the other hand, I do love math, so I wouldn't always think it was that silly and sad. But I had this damn loneliness hanging around, which colored the rest of the evening.

And I do think it is important to feel sadness. I mean, it feels like checking in with a part of yourself that you ignore a lot of the time. However, I think there's also wallowing in sadness, and I don't think that's helpful at all, but I also think that feels different. Sometimes "negative" feelings (anger, sadness, loneliness, general grouchiness) feel like a rut, a groove in the road that you get stuck in, and I am actually quite proud of my ability to get OUT of them when that's the case, when you have a choice. Does that make sense? Sometimes, there's this perverse pleasure in hanging on to a negative emotion - it feels good when it feels so bad, you know? That's part of wallowing. I'm not about that. I don't think those moods are good for much. That's giving your inner scumbag too much leeway. That's when it's important to pull yourself together.

I think what happened to me last night was the absence of the normal stimulation we receive from dawn 'til lights out. My friends were busy, I didn't particularly feel like seeking anyone out to hang out with, nothing too pressing had to be done - and I was writing notes, but that didn't take up too much of my brain. And when the everyday noise of the world and of my own head was gone, I realized that I was sad.

By the time I went to bed, I wasn't sad anymore. I had a very, very long texting conversation with an old friend during which he explained some of general relativity to me, and I explained the basics of field extensions to him, and it was positively thrilling.

Here's a good representation of my mood now. Generally happy, but introspective, and in a delicate minor key.