I've spent a fair amount of my life regretting things I've done, or being depressed for any number of reasons, and it's never fun. Depression and sadness are things I wouldn't wish on anybody, and yet it's something that is often beautiful in an odd way to behold when viewed on our TVs, on the big screen, in song, when read in the pages of a book, or experienced in a video game.
Why do we find something that no one wants to experience firsthand so appealing in a fictional context? Is it some terrible aspect of humanity where we enjoy seeing others suffer, or do we have a need to feel compassion the same way we wish others would feel it for us?
I'm not sure, but I do find myself expressing my own sadness in poems and stories, and when I reread them, there is a certain beauty there. And when I think of my favorite music, films, TV shows, books, and video games, it's often the ones where the characters experience the most hardship that appeal to me most.
Maybe these things teach us how to feel for others, how to understand that everyone has hardship, and that all mankind feels depressed now and again.
And maybe, we feel a bit thankful when the fictional person is worse off than us.
Ultimately, though, we crave to see and feel human emotions, to understand how humanity works, and we hope that by doing so, we'll understand ourselves a little bit better.
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