Svithe #145: In defense of misery, and in which remember that men may not always have joy

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Happy birthday, Lincoln. Although would you have been happy? Our greatest president was also one of our gloomiest as we may notice when we read some of his verse. The point I want to make regards the worth of depressed people.

Redoubt's excellent post, her svithe manifesto on depression, deserves your attention. I want to steal from her a bit today and talk about the verses she quotes.

"Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy." 2 Nephi 2:25

We Mormons love this verse. We quote it all the time. But we often overapply it. As Redoubt points out, this verse precedes it:

"For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things." 2 Nephi 2:11

Redoubt: "You can't just say that we're here to have joy. That's only half the equation. I hate when people refuse to acknowledge the other half. Unhappiness is real, it breathes in our cities, it permeates our lives, and ignoring it doesn't make it go away, you can't pretend it's not there just because you don't want it."

She's right. men are not that they might always have joy --- in fact, such a thing is impossible. Without the misery, we could not recognize the joy. This is sound Mormon doctrine.

Redoubt: "Having joy may perhaps be the end goal of it all, but that's not going to happen, it's simply not going to, in this life."

"Because that Adam fell, we are; and by his fall came death; and we are made partakers of misery and woe." Moses 6:48

Welcome to mortality, folks. And keep praying. And stay away from the knives.

You are loved.

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