Blog de Pablo Gómez-Abajo: Why am I not expected to express my sadness?

COVID-19 Pandemic
(2020-2023)

As usual, I will start by the beginning of the story, though I will try to go straightforward to what I really want to say. This is a true conversation I had some weeks ago with a good person that I would like to share with you.

Some days ago, I was infected by the COVID-19 virus. My wife was infected, too. Therefore, both of us were infected. We suppose we were infected by this COVID-19 infection at some visit to the hospital due to some medical check some days before. We kept staying home those days, although this is not mandatory by the medical authorities anymore ... or at least from around 2023, at the end of the Pandemic, until today.

As during those days, I was still finishing my teaching duties in the University, Monday the 7th of July I had to evaluate some bachelor’s thesis defenses in the High Polytechnic School of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Then, I warned my colleagues that if the COVID test was still positive that very morning, I would stay home. But that very morning the COVID test was negative, as I had been with the infection for almost 5 days, therefore I did leave home and went on my way to my working place.

High Polytechnic School
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

But as I’ve always been cautious and prudent I took an FFP2 mask and ordered a taxi to take me to Plaza de Castilla, to avoid taking the underground where the security distance cannot be easily reached, and though the test was already negative, I could still possibly infect others.

My grandfather, my father’s father, was a taxi driver. Maybe that’s one of the reasons I usually get easily involved in a conversation with such professionals, that are accustomed to driving people with any background anywhere and usually are very easy-going.

So, we started to talk. As usual, we mentioned a few not-very-important things to break the ice. And after a while we entered deeper concepts.

Taxis de Madrid

So, we talked about this news published some days before, about the very sick conditions many people get into retirement age due to the very poor conditions they must work most of their labor life.

I said I feel very sad because every step forward in my life has cost my wife and me a great deal of blood, sweat, and tears. And although as we already know, the grass is always greener on the other side, there are many others who seem to have made much less effort or have never been exposed to such hostile scenarios, they are still in better positions than us and they even seem to have better health and be much younger than we are.

We agreed that in many cases, such people who haven’t made such an effort really don’t know as much about what truly living means and how much it costs to earn it. Such people only experience a half-life, which gives them only a partial understanding of the whole picture.

The conversation followed. Then we talked about some other things that make me equally sad.

The Truman Show
(1998)

It seems to me that today there are very few people who talk about their own worries. It seems that talking about your own problems means a straightforward weakness. And today nobody wants to be seen as weak, or vulnerable. Sometimes it seems to me that no one else than us knows an old person that needs their caring love and protection. The first comment that you may hear from such people, if there’s any, is when such relative dies. When everything has passed. When there’s nothing that can be done. Sometimes, it seems to me that we live within a fantasy theatre, a place pretty like the one very cleverly and accurately depicted in films such as “The Truman Show”.

And then we still talked about some other misery of our current times. To illustrate this part of the conversation, I will share this question with you.

If I’m sad, how am I expected to behave? I mean, if I have some relative that is dying, how am I expected to express my feelings? Sadness is not quite accepted today, some of the people who are called experts say if it’s too deep it can be a symptom of mental illness, and this fact is placing much pressure over many sad people who usually tend to repress this feeling, or at least omit expressing it to others.

Vincent Van Gogh
(1853-1890)

But if I’m sad – and I mean truly sad, without any possible workaround, carrying an unavoidable sorrow – why am I expected to repress this feeling, if not the whole of it, even part of it? Some will say that you are not expected to repress the feeling but disguise it. Why? If I’m sad I need to express that I’m sad and there is no possible workaround, isn’t it? The question is if I’m sad today, why cannot I clearly express that I’m sad today?

I agree that a very deep sadness and being kept for a long time is truly not very positive, because it may also lead you to abandon your daily duties too, but this has happened at every age. I mean, these people are those that were traditionally called melancholic, and they were the ones that usually dedicated their lives to arts in any shape.

What is happening today then? What I suppose is that the real target behind all this, the real purpose of everything I’m telling now is that the ‘mister demon’s’ true goal (as I called evil in a previous post in this blog) is killing arts… But this should be described in a following blog's post. Thank you.

Happy Summer Holidays ☀️🏖️🚣‍♀️🌊🌴🍹