The 13th Portrait Of Despair

Neil Gaiman's book The Sandman: Endless Nights has a chapter for each of his seven Endless: Death, Desire, Dream, Despair, Delirium, Destruction and Destiny.


15 Portraits of Despair is exactly what it sounds like. It's one of my favourite works of his. Neil himself (oh ho ho, see what I did there) says:

"I may write for another hundred years, but I'll never read a prose story I've written with that sense of bemused, parental delight."

In this blog I am setting out to attempt to answer the "exam questions" in Portrait #13.

Here is one depiction of Despair. She doesn't make a pretty portrait really, does she?

A) If you can't be happy where you are, you can't be happy anywhere. Discuss, with examples from your own life.

I believe that this is true most of the time, for those of us living fairly normal lives, but of course there are always exceptions.

Funnily, the first thing that comes to mind is a quote about suicide from another of Gaiman's books, The Graveyard Book. The question is something along the lines of whether people are happier after they kill themselves.

"Sometimes. Mostly, no. It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean." 

That was the one thing that really resonated with me in The Graveyard Book and pretty much sums up my answer to this question. I believe that happiness in life is determined much more by a person than by their circumstances. There are some who will always see the best in everything and everyone, and some who will always see the worst. I think that, for the most part, those with a positive disposition will be happy just about anywhere, and those with a negative disposition will be unhappy just about anywhere. There are endless quotes about this that I have seen in various places, but that's the one that really stuck in my head. I guess because it addresses death as well as life.

I also believe that personality is not fixed, and that it is possible for someone to change from being an unhappy type to a happy type, or vice versa. This requires a desire and commitment to change one's ways of thinking, and may be helped along by a change of scenery, but cannot be brought about entirely by such.

There probably are also circumstances so very dire that it would be almost impossible for anyone to be happy in them. However, for most of us I think that we have the power to choose to be happy, or not.

Part of this, I think, is the implications of living in The Real World. I'm sure that all of us miserable souls would be perfectly happy if we could move off to our fantasy lands. But sadly, in the real world, not only do we take ourselves with us, but also our problems. Moving to another place in The Real World won't bring you an endless supply of money, a perfect body, a soulmate, a satisfying job, a purpose in life, or whatever else it is you may cry about. If it does, you'll just find something else to be sad about. Moving to your Fantasy World just might make everything better.

I can tell you that in my own life, I have maintained the same basic level of happiness throughout. Sure, there have been ups and downs, sometimes lasting for months at a time. But if things are shit, they always get better. If they're great, they always get worse. I've been in Despair's realm. We all have.  I've had extended stays there. But somewhere deep inside, I had Hope (oh man, this reminds me of ANOTHER Gaiman quote):

"I am anti-life, the Beast of Judgement. I am the dark at the end of everything. The end of universes, gods, worlds … of everything. And what will you be then, Dreamlord?"
"I am Hope."

(at this point he Wins The Game, Yay!) 

Er, where was I? This is turning into a massive Gaiman-fest.. so, I guess, I had the WILL to be happy, the HOPE of being happy, and the DRIVE to be happy. And so I did. It is easy to stay in Despair's realm if you pity yourself and wallow in sorrow. It is also not all that difficult to leave if you really want to.

I'm not sure if I've even really answered the question and I haven't said even a fraction of all the things I want to.. but, this answer is getting kinda long and I don't think anyone is THAT interested in what I have to say.

I will leave you with an excerpt from a song that my friend Laura and I wrote when we were about fifteen. It is about a city that gets stolen by a vile thief. This is, of course, the Insightful Rap Bridge.


The city missed its home and it wanted to return
But you never seem to get the things for which you always yearn
You can spend your whole life chasing after everything in sight
But the grass ain't really greener on the other side
So appreciate what you've got, don't live in regret
Enjoy it while you have it coz you haven't lost it yet
You can always find a silver lining to each cloud
Even if you're trapped inside yourself with no way out.

B) Hell is Other People. Do you agree?

Demonstrate how this might or might not apply in the case of:

i) The Armenian Massacre of 1915

ii) Either the life of Algernon Charles Swinburne or the death of Walt Disney

iii) the darkness before creation

(Answer two of three.)

No, I do not agree. I would reword this as:

Other People can be Hell.

I suppose in accordance with my answers above, I should argue that Hell is Oneself. But I don't agree with that either. I don't think that Hell is any one thing. It's Other People. It's Oneself. It's a burning pit of fire below the earth. It's pain, physical or emotional. It's helplessness. It's all of these things and many more. It's whatever you perceive it to be.

Coming back to Other People - yes, they can be Hell. In some cases, there is nothing you can do about it. In some cases, though, you are allowing these people to make your life Hell.

Eleanor Roosevelt said "no one can make you feel inferior without your consent." She was absolutely right. And I say that nearly no one can make your life Hell without your consent.

Of course, Other People can also be what makes a different kind of Hell tolerable. I'm going to jump into question (ii) at this point: the death of Walt Disney.

A brief internet search tells me that Walt Disney suffered from the Hell that is cancer and its associated treatments in the months preceding his death. While he was in hospital, it was Other People that made his last days bearable. His family kept him company at his bedside. The Disney studio was across the street from his hospital room, and his brother asked them to keep the lights on at all times for him. This was one of the joys in Walt's life, and he would ask the nurses to prop him up so he could see. In this case (HOLY SHIT THIS JUST POPPED UP ON TWEETDECK) Other People were the very opposite of Hell.

There are also cases where Other People can simultaneously be Hell and its opposite. Not that I know the first thing about the Armenian Massacre of 1915, but I imagine this could have been the case here. Okay, I'm thinking concentration camps: Hell imposed by other people. But at the same time, I'm guessing that the ONLY joy in those people's lives came from other people. Different people, of course: their friends. Then there is the other side to that: it could be Hell to know that your loved ones are to die soon. This is all very complicated, no?

And just because I seem to have Too Much To Say and am not getting graded on this, I'll have a brief look at the darkness before creation too, because I've thought about it a little and came up with this: There can be no Hell in the darkness before creation, because there are no people, and Hell is something that requires people in order to exist, so that it may be experienced. A little like the Endless, really. Well isn't Hell just another name for Despair? BUT. I think that if there is the darkness.. and then there is just ONE PERSON in the darkness... there can be Hell, without there being other people. Perhaps the Hell is the Absence of Other People. Does that make Other People Hell, because their absence can be Hell? Or does it make Other People the opposite of Hell?

C) Construct an analogy using the saline nature of either tears or the sea and the salt that makes a dish palatable and adds piquance and savour.

(Examinees are encouraged to refer to either the third daughter of Llyr or Lot's wife, but not both.)

So, my impression of the story of Llyr's third daughter is this:

Llyr asks his three daughters how much they love him. His third daughter replies that she loves him like she loves salt - he is furious and disowns her. Years later she somehow gets into a position to feed him a meal with no salt in it. The food is awful and the father realises that she meant her life is utterly tasteless without him in it, as a meal is without salt.

Now, tears are an expression of extreme emotion. They are most commonly used to represent sadness, but I am sure we have all been known to tear up at an overwhelmingly happy moment too. This salt of tears is what makes life interesting and bearable. Without these emotions - both positive and negative - life would be dull, tasteless and quite unbearable. The highs bring us delight, and the lows make everything else seem much better in contrast. Think: Would you rather never cry again? Never feel despair, grief, sadness, but also never experience joy again? Or would you rather live a flat life, void of emotion? The life may be great, wonderful things may happen to you, but you need to have feelings before it MEANS anything. Similarly, the most  delicious dish you have ever had may taste bland and unpleasant if all the salt were removed.

D) If I was God I would abolish............

Complete in 250 words of less. Physical practicalities and human nature are to be respected. The Law of Conservation of Happiness may not be violated.

SO. This is assuming that there IS a God, that there is only one, and that this God has the power to abolish anything. If I were this God, I would abolish myself. Anyone with that sort of power definitely needs to be BANNED. Let the world run itself. I have never much liked Responsibility, and Power is Corruption and honestly if I had all these powers I wouldn't know where to start nor where to stop.

If human nature is to be respected, this implies that I don't actually have power over people's actions. Sure, I guess I could abolish something Bad like War or Disease. But.. I'd always worry that I made the wrong decision. And CAN you abolish War, if there is still human nature and free will? I am unsure.

Urban Dictionary tells me that the Law of Conservation of Happiness states that "in order for one to attain a state of happiness, another must become unhappy." Sounds like Newton's Third Law to me. Well, if, as God, I can never have everyone being happy, I shall always be most miserable myself. Yup - definitely abolishing Me!

Well, that's that. Probably my longest blog ever. I would like to hear some other opinions on these questions. Also, feel free to rip the shit out of me for saying dumb things.