TED ED P9 A brief history of melancholy

Sadness is part of the human experience, but for centuries there has  been vast disagreement over what exactly it is and what, if anything, to do about it.

In its simplest terms, sadness is often thought of as the natural reaction  to a difficult situation.

vast disagreement   巨大的争论

You feel sad when a friend moves away or when a pet dies.

When a friend says, "I'm sad," you often respond by asking, "What happened?"

But your assumption that sadness has an external cause outside the self is a relatively new idea.

They believed it was a dark fluid inside the body. According to their humoral system, the human body and soul were controlled by four fluids, known as humors, and their balance directly influenced a person's health and temperament.

Melancholia comes from melaina kole, the word for black bile, the humor believed to cause sadness.

humor  n.幽默；诙谐  humors  体液     humoral  体液的

temperament   n.气质，性格；

Melancholia   n.<旧>忧郁，忧郁症，抑郁症

bile   n.胆汁；愤怒

By changing your diet and through medical practices, you could bring your humors into balance.

Even though we now know much more about the systems that govern the human body, these Greek ideas about sadness resonate with current views, not on the sadness we all occasionally feel, but on clinical depression.

resonate   v.发出回响，回荡；充满，弥漫（某种特质）；引起共鸣；产生（电或机械）共振

clinical   adj.诊所的，医务室的；临床的，临床诊断的；冷静的，无感情的；简陋的，无装饰的；精确的，娴熟的

Doctors believe that certain  kinds of long-term, unexplained emotional states are at least partially related to brain chemistry, the balance of various chemicals  present inside the brain.

Like the Greek system, changing the balance of these chemicals can deeply alter how we respond to even extremely difficult circumstances.

There's also a long tradition of attempting to discern the value of sadness, and in that discussion, you'll find a strong argument that sadness is not only an inevitable part of life but an essential one.

If you've never felt melancholy, you've missed out on part of what it means to be human.

discern   v看出，觉察出；了解，认识

Many thinkers contend that melancholy is necessary in gaining wisdom.

Robert Burton, born in 1577, spent his life studying the causes and experience of sadness.

In his masterpiece "The Anatomy of Melancholy," Burton wrote, "He that increaseth wisdom increaseth sorrow."

The Romantic poets of  the early 19th century believed melancholy allows us to more deeply understand other profound emotions, like beauty and joy.

To understand the sadness of the trees losing their leaves in the fall is to more fully understand the cycle of life that brings flowers in the spring.

But wisdom and emotional intelligence seem pretty high on the hierarchy of needs.

Does sadness have value on a more basic, tangible, maybe even evolutionary level?

profound  adj.（影响）深刻的，极大的；（感情）强烈的，深切的；（思想）深邃的，（见解）深刻的

emotional intelligence  情商

 hierarchy  n.等级制度；统治集团；等级体系

 tangible  adj.明确的，真实的；可触摸的，可感知的

Scientists think that crying and feeling withdrawn is what originally helped our ancestors secure social bonds and helped them get the support they needed.

Sadness, as opposed to anger or violence, was an expression of suffering that could immediately bring people closer to the suffering person, and this helped both the person and the larger community to thrive.

withdrawn  adj.沉默寡言的；与世隔绝的  withdraw  v.  提，取（银行账户中的钱款）；停止提供，不再给予； 退出，不参加；

Perhaps sadness helped generate the unity we needed to survive, but many have wondered whether the suffering felt by others is anything like the suffering we experience ourselves.

The poet Emily Dickinson wrote, "I measure every Grief I meet With narrow, probing Eyes - wonder if it weighs like MIne - Or has an Easier size."

“我眯着眼视察每个我所遇见的悲痛-心想它是否和我的一样重-或者只是小如橡皮。”

And in the 20th century, medical anthropologists, like Arthur Kleinman, gathered evidence from the way people talk about pain to suggest that emotions aren't universal at all, and that culture, particularly the way we use language, can influence how we feel.

在20世纪，像Arthur Kleinman这样的人类医学家，收集了人们阐述自己悲伤的方式作为证据来证明感情其实根本不是普遍的，而且文化，尤其是我们使用语言的方式，都会影响到我们所感所受

When we talk about heartbreak, the feeling of brokenness  becomes part of our experience, where as in a culture that talks  about a bruised heart, there actually seems to be a different subjective experience.

Some contemporary thinkers  aren't interested in sadness' subjectivity  versus universality, and would rather use technology to eliminate suffering in all its forms.

bruised  adj.青肿的；瘀紫的

contemporary   adj.当代的，现代的；

David Pearce has suggested that genetic engineering and other contemporary processes cannot only alter the way humans experience emotional and physical pain, but that world ecosystems ought to be redesigned so that animals don't suffer in the wild.

He calls his project  "paradise engineering."

But is there something sad about a world without sadness?

Our cavemen ancestors and favorite poets might not want any part  of such a paradise.

In fact, the only things about sadness that seem universally agreed upon are that it has been felt by most people throughout time, and that for thousands of years, one of the best ways we have to deal with this difficult emotion is to articulate it, to try to express what feels inexpressable.

articulate   v.明确表达，清楚说明；

In the words of Emily Dickinson, "'Hope' is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul -

"And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all -"

feather   n.羽毛

perch   v.（鸟）栖息，停留；（尤指人在高处或很窄的地方）稍坐，暂歇；（建筑物）坐落于……的上方（或边缘）；把……平稳置于，使坐落于

          n.（鸟的）栖木，栖枝；高处，高位；

用Emily Dickinson的话说，“’希望‘是有翅膀的东西-在灵魂里窥视，它歌唱着没有文字的旋律-而且永不停息-”