I think melancholy and nostalgia are very similar. There's a mix of regret and memory, a sense of loveliness slipped away but not forgotten. I don't feel melancholy should be confused with depression or the characteristic of pessimism.
No, not at all I like autumn, though by November here it's normally over and the rain has set in for good. I can't feel emotional about seasons it's just what is, it will be back next year and the one after.
I have never heard of epicaricacy @pansyface, but always understood schadenfreude to mean delight in someone else's misfortune if that person was somehow getting their comeuppance, rather than the plain rotten luck of the person in that example.
I have a natural melancholic disposition and feel an affinity with anything that involves sighs and whispers so enjoy autumn as that liminal season between summer and winter. I'd be more inclined to read Keats than listen to Wagner so enjoy the romance of the vegetation gently dying along with the dying light, everything fading into the cold and dark of winter. But the promise of rebirth in the spring is always there.
No melancholy here. We've finally had some significant rainfall in th elast few days and many trees are hanging on to their leaves and still green. Others are on the turn so lots of glorious buttery yellows, coppers, bronzes and reds. The salvias, dahlias, sedums, nectarines, and many asters are still flowering. The garden birds are busy and have changed as the summer visitors leave and the winter visitors arrive.
Today the sun is shining but low so everything is bathed in glorious golden light. I have garden jobs to do, house jobs to do, sewing and patchwork homework for Monday's workshops and luscious food to cook for meals and some Xmas embroidery to do after dinner while curled up on the sofa.
No reason at all to feel wistful about passing seasons. Just embrace each one and make the most of them, indoors and out.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
Pansy, I don't know about the English pinching words. My best friend is Indian,and when I hear her talking in her native tongue,it's very fast,and interspersed with English words.
@pansyface I went once to a Wagner opera in Berlin and it took me several days to get rid of the heaviness. I felt like my home had dark purple heavy curtains on the windows and the entire air was so heavy.
How can you "romanticise melancholy, the 2,words are almost polar opposites.
@Nanny Beach I think this is what makes the Germans so different in November from the English. The Germans enjoy their melancholy in Autumn and are drawn t it. Sentences like this made me thinking: (translated) "Melancholy. Yes, during this time I am always gripped by it. " "Autumn is probably really the time when melancholy hangs in the air. But maybe that's why we like it."
This is one of the first images I took after I had moved to the UK on the 3rd of November 2007. We went to Blenheim Palace (must have been the B480 to Oxford). I'm still emotional when I see a green countryside during the winter months. I did miss that colour while living in Berlin.
I don't feel melancholy should be confused with depression or the characteristic of pessimism.
Totally agree, @Posy Being melancholic is one way to process what we eventually miss, or would like to have but have accepted that it's not possible. Sayings like "back then, everything was better" or "when I was younger ..." are example of melancholic remembrance.
Good things about autumn: You can kick leaves if the council hasn't got to them first You can wear snuggly clothes It's cool enough to sleep The colour of autumn leaves.
There's a lot of depressing stuff but it is not all so
@pansyface There is an English equivalent for schadenfreude. It’s epicaricacy. Never heard it in my life. There are not many instances where a German word rolls of the tongue more easily than the English version! (Although, it looks a bit greek to me)
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I have a natural melancholic disposition and feel an affinity with anything that involves sighs and whispers so enjoy autumn as that liminal season between summer and winter. I'd be more inclined to read Keats than listen to Wagner so enjoy the romance of the vegetation gently dying along with the dying light, everything fading into the cold and dark of winter. But the promise of rebirth in the spring is always there.
Today the sun is shining but low so everything is bathed in glorious golden light. I have garden jobs to do, house jobs to do, sewing and patchwork homework for Monday's workshops and luscious food to cook for meals and some Xmas embroidery to do after dinner while curled up on the sofa.
No reason at all to feel wistful about passing seasons. Just embrace each one and make the most of them, indoors and out.
@Nanny Beach I think this is what makes the Germans so different in November from the English. The Germans enjoy their melancholy in Autumn and are drawn t it. Sentences like this made me thinking: (translated)
"Melancholy. Yes, during this time I am always gripped by it. "
"Autumn is probably really the time when melancholy hangs in the air. But maybe that's why we like it."
This is one of the first images I took after I had moved to the UK on the 3rd of November 2007. We went to Blenheim Palace (must have been the B480 to Oxford). I'm still emotional when I see a green countryside during the winter months. I did miss that colour while living in Berlin.
I ♥ my garden.
I ♥ my garden.
You can kick leaves if the council hasn't got to them first
You can wear snuggly clothes
It's cool enough to sleep
The colour of autumn leaves.
There's a lot of depressing stuff but it is not all so
There is an English equivalent for schadenfreude. It’s epicaricacy. Never heard it in my life.
There are not many instances where a German word rolls of the tongue more easily than the English version! (Although, it looks a bit greek to me)