An Antidote for Optimism
For if ever you are in danger of feeling a wave of quite unreasonable cheerfulness descend, here is a simple antidote:
The Three Miseries
This is the key to misery
It opens its miserable door
Attendants glum & gloom greet you half way
You bring your fears you call a number
They provide the tissues
This other key is for the inner chamber
Of advanced misery
Attendants manic & morose clutch your arms
The three of you are inseparable
You dance the ring around the rosy doom
Yet the sacred of all miseries
Is the utmost misery
There are no attendants no door no key
You get there by your mastery
Of misery and advanced misery.
You sink on its throne
On its magnificent throne
S. Sharat Chandra
From The Paris Review issue no. 61 (Spring 1975)
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Tate, 1958, Mark Rothko
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Black Square (2008)
Tate © Gillian Carnegie
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Featured image: Detail from: Abbey among Oak Trees by Caspar David Friedrich,1809/1810
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Very droll - reverse psychology works!
Wonderful! I felt myself slipping there!
You have to get a grip before it is too late and you find yourself so deeply mired in a dreadful cheerfulness that you fear it will never end. I'm glad i was able to be of some service.
I look forward to all your pics and observations of Spring spranging upstate.
Ha--black humor indeed! I love Ronald Searle's Molesworth illustrations. When and where did that advertisement (or faux-advertisement) come from--wartime UK? Who created it? Was it serious or tongue-in-cheek? On the other hand, the poem didn't feel at all tongue-in-cheek to me--the third stanza taking us into a state of deep depression. (BTW, I think the author's name was G.S. Sharat Chandra--you need to add a 'G'). Did you write the "simple antidote" lead-in to it? Somehow I don't think that was in the original!
I don't think we're in much danger of unreasonable optimism these days, despite signs of spring everywhere, but I'll remind myself next time I feel "a wave of unreasonable cheerfulness" coming over me!
Hi Josna - Have been deep in Molesworth - hence the irrepressible cheerfulness! The Optimism ad is from the Wiper's (Ypres) Times. - the WW1 trench newspaper. I think it appeared in July 1916 - right after the start of the Somme.
Wonderful - I feel a desperate wave of cheerfulness floating away!!
Thank you!!
You are very welcome Sheila. And may your spring be fully sprung!
'Reality' sa molesworth 2,'is so unspeakbly sordid it make me shudder.'
As any fule kno.