Lincoln and Melancholy

It is said that Lincoln suffered depression his whole life and yet achieved greatness. I was going through a book that talks about him and his contemporary greats of his field. The more details I come to know about him, the more I found his persona mystic. It looked to me that he had layers to his views. The way he approached his upbringing, seems to have an impact on his approach towards events that happened in the rest of his life. In fact, it seems in his early youth days, he even struggled to come up with some kind of significant achievement that could have given him some confidence about the way his life was shaping.

Since the time he stepped into the professional field(he started with the law), he remained realistic in his approach. The views expressed by his contemporary about him reflect that he was the person who lived on minimalist resources and yet gone through moments where scarcity of intimacy or lack of support of people almost pushed him to the brink of complete breakdown. This may reflect that whether a person is minimalist or materialistic, spikes of extreme touches everyone. How-so-ever, Lincoln’s life shows that he was insulated to the impact of a lack of materialistic support. He always worked his way around to any such adversity to keep moving, whether ahead or not that is debatable. But what made even Lincoln vulnerable was the sudden demise of his lady friend who had given him emotional support during his struggling days as a young lawyer. It is said that during that time Lincoln was considered to be on edge of suicide. It took him a great deal of internal struggle to recover from that setback. But the way Lincoln approached his life there-after, it seems, he always kept himself prepared for any kind of setback, and thus melancholy seems to become an integral part of his soul.

Lincoln’s life also reflects that people who have such melancholy characteristics, generally can’t live insignificant life and need some kind of purpose; fulfillment of which make them considerate worthy to other humans. One such cause is reducing other people’s sorrow, which will help them back in subduing their own pains of life. Had America was flourishing and be on her best phase, Lincoln would be of little help, in fact, he could have been on a self-destructive phase, you never know.

The best part of Lincoln’s approach was that whatever be the case he kept himself moving, as I said earlier, moving up was not the main approach. “Keep Moving” was the mantra for Lincoln. He kept on making his ways, and rarely halted himself to praise or confute to empty his heart out. He kept on taking things and absorbed the emotions in an uncomplicated manner. He was having his own way to take out emotions, and generally, he took it out hiding in a layer of similar emotions meant either for the public or a group of people, via speeches. In fact, he had shown his tender feelings and gone weak, though on rare occasions, but to his closest friends who helped him to move on gracefully.

What people generally called depression, could have been his understanding of life in general during his time. Some uses their aggression, some their charm, some have muscles and most have inherited resources to make their life in some way meaningful. But for Lincoln it was his inner strength to use melancholy in era of human struggle, which put him in one of greats of his and coming generations.


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