A Melancholy Fool

I love the word melancholy. "I am feeling melancholic." Melon-colic sounds like a fussy baby who wants fruit. Sometimes that's me, but the guy on the left is Robert Burton.

Robby was a gay boy about thirteen years younger than Will Shakespeare. He might have dated Shakespeare's little sister, but he was gay and he wrote a lot about being sad - most famously The Anatomy of Melancholy.

He studied math, which is probably a good enough reason for anyone to be depressed. He liked looking at the stars and laughing at angry barge-men.

Ironically, he wrote The Anatomy of Melancholy for the same reason that I'm writing about him right now - to stop being sad.

"I write of melancholy, by being busy to avoid melancholy. There is no greater cause of melancholy than idleness, no better cure than business."

Writing and being creative are the best things to do when you're sad because you can come up with such great things.




The only thing better, perhaps, is laughter.