happysad

content/posts/happysad.md

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+---
+title: "happysad"
+date: 2025-07-30
+draft: false
+---
+
+I was thinking on the train today about how, although I basically despise social
+media, I still use it somewhat regularly. However, I don't use it in as much as
+I don't post on it or interact in any way but liking things. The thing I use
+social media for is finding happysad, and it seems to me that the algorithms
+(mostly of instagram, youtube, and tiktok) are good places to look.
+
+happysad is the faith in humanity emotion. It's the feeling I get when I watch
+a video of a man taking photos of strangers on the street, slowly learning their
+language and doing his best to communicate with them. It's the feeling I get
+when I see a doting father post a video of his friendship with his daughter and
+their shared love of a song. It's the feeling I get when I see someone sit down
+and have tea in the park with an old woman, letting her tell her story and share
+it with all those watching. Or when a man offers strangers $100 to cook for him
+until he finds a charismatic Austrian man in orange who invites him into his
+beautiful home to do just that. It's a feeling of warmth in my heart, and faith
+in the world. But it makes me want to (and sometimes I do) cry.
+
+Part of me associates the feeling with nostalgia, but that doesn't feel right
+because to me nostalgia _is_ sad. Nostalgia might be felt looking back at old
+photos and remembering happy times, yes, but it's also a feeling of loss for
+those same times. A feeling of separation maybe? It's similar to the feeling
+I get listening to a large choir singing together, often some hymn or another,
+full of harmony but sometimes just singing along as a big group An aside here
+- I recommend Nearer My God to Thee by the BYU Vocal Group, or Space Oddity by
+Choir Choir Choir (the 500+ people version), or (I know I'm going on a bit here)
+the video of the crowd singing Bohemian Rhapsody before the Green Day concert in
+Hyde Park in 2017. 
+
+I'm still not sure what exactly causes happysad to occur for me personally, but
+I know it's something I seek out. I love finding videos in Instagram Reels that
+evoke it for me. I find it a very cathartic feeling and often feel positive,
+uplifted, optimistic. I appreciate that I have access to platforms that give me
+access to such content.
+
+P.S. I thought of another instance of lots of people singing, the Kentucky State
+Choir sing the American national anthem every year (I think) and the 2013
+version is stunning.