Unquiet
Things

The title of this post is taken from Melancholy Maaret’s audio poem “Paper Butterflies.” I originally pondered this bit of weirdness, this memo on melancholy, if you will, for the Coilhouse blog back in 2011, and my thoughts often return to it. I can’t believe I never shared it here, so I am sharing it today because it continues to enthrall me, even now.

I’m embedding that particular audio installation because I loved it so much at the time (and still do but with an older, craggier heart and more life experience), but I also find the creator herself incredibly captivating. Melancholy Maaret is a deaf multidisciplinary artist, writer, and sound-art composer based in Helsinki and New York. Her work spans various media, including vocals and voice-overs created from sound-memory and vibrations without auto-tune. Maaret’s art often involves character-based performances, embodying fictional or historical women, as well as her own ancestors. Her creations are influenced by an eclectic mix of Finnish folklore, neuroscience, epigenetic trauma, and the works of diverse thinkers and artists. She leverages her classical training in theatre, movement, and voice to create unique sound compositions, often accompanied by manipulated video installations.

Her approach to melancholy was both profound and provocative, as evidenced in her statement about ‘Paper Butterfly’:

‘I do not want optimism and blind hope. I want to triumph in sadness… Science can never denude the soul’s need for an artistic confrontation or a lullaby… Sadness and her sister’s emotions increase productivity, kindness, and creativity.’

The intersection of melancholy, creativity, and cognitive function intrigues me immensely, and I often wonder about this artist—is she still creating? Where has her journey with melancholy led her in her art and life?

By preserving these snippets of writing on my blog here, I hope to maintain a record of my fascinations. Coilhouse, though not active for over a decade, continues to maintain its archives–which is amazing!–but I have been burned so many times by the blogs I’ve written for in the past suddenly winking out of existence, and like a dummy, I never had backups of my contributions. So here we are. And this is why you see things like this pop up on my blog occasionally. I wrote them initially for someone else’s blog, but the site disappeared, and my writing became unhoused for a time. What you see here today and at other times is my writing returning home.

 Anyway, this intro is becoming longer than the original writing! Just a bit more, though. Rereading it now, I’m struck by how some aspects still feel relevant, though I recognize that my approach to language and certain topics has evolved over time. I’d likely phrase some things differently today, with a more nuanced and sensitive perspective. I certainly would not tell anyone to ditch their meds in this year of our lord, 2024! I’m also aware that pain as performance, the romanticization of melancholy, and the allure of the tortured artist–these can be damaging ideations, potentially glorifying mental health struggles and obscuring the very real need for support and care. But …does it still resonate with me? On some level…of course, it does.

So I suppose this serves as a snapshot of a particular moment in time, both in my personal journey and in the broader cultural conversation around mental health and artistic expression.

…scientists say melancholics are better lovers” /” ..happy people are forgetful suckers”/ “…Roget created his thesaurus to combat the funk”

Melancholy Maaret, enigmatic contemporary visual and performance artist and founder of Secret Sauna Sirens—a pseudonymous, experimental collaborative of multidisciplinary artists—has some interesting insight into the subject of sadness. In her poem “Paper Butterflies,” she solemnly urges us inward, in lilting, bird-like tones and a delicately rolling Finnish accent, to examine our melancholia and embrace these hermetic, suffocating feelings.

Stop trying to be happy, she warbles. After all, “…mental acuity flourishes in despair” and”…blue betties make fewer tactical errors”. “I’m not making this shit up,” she insists. Well…is she? Perhaps not. In Scientific American’s 2009 article regarding a study of depression’s evolutionary roots, it is suggested that depression is not a disorder at all, but a mental adaptation with some useful cognitive benefits.

Depressed people often think intensely about their problems. These thoughts are called ruminations; they are persistent and depressed people have difficulty thinking about anything else. Numerous studies have also shown that this thinking style is often highly analytical. They dwell on a complex problem, breaking it down into smaller components, which are considered one at a time.

This analytical style of thought, of course, can be very productive. Each component is not as difficult, so the problem becomes more tractable. Indeed, when you are faced with a difficult problem, such as a math problem, feeling depressed is often a useful response that may help you analyze and solve it. For instance, in some of our research, we have found evidence that people who get more depressed while they are working on complex problems in an intelligence test tend to score higher on the test.

Thank you, Melancholy Maaret, for validating us saddies. Viva melancholia! Ditch the Wellbutrin. Stay sad and homely, indeed.