Bonjour tristesse

Did you know that melancholy used to be one of the seven deadly sins ? Melancholy? Really? Deadly?

They traded it in for sloth sometime during the 17^th century.

So I got to thinking about melancholy. Being sad and gloomy. Is that really all that bad? And sometimes it isn’t even that. It’s more like pensive than gloomy. Like pensive with an edge. Edgy contemplation.

I did find an archaic definition that explains the sin aspect. It referred to sullenness and outbreaks of violent anger caused by black bile.

Now that sounds nasty. Black bile. Moral sludge generated by equal measures of sadness, anger, guilt and confusion. Sounds a lot like a crise de foi / foie. A liver crisis of faith. Or a faith crisis of the liver.

The solution for melancholy? Chocolate, I think. Soul salve. Not as good for the liver though. The solution for black bile? Equal measures of rainbows, unicorns, cotton candy and sand castles.

On being firm

And I'm not talking about body parts.

I'm talking about being marked by firm determination.

About being bold and steady. About being intègre. Which I saw translated as just but that doesn't seem right. Whole seems better, as in being completely whole. Whatever that is.

About being résolu. Resolute.

In French, résolu is the past participle of the verb résoudre, to resolve. So how is resolute different from resolved? To resolve can mean to find a solution, to remove doubts, to cause to progress from dissonance to consonance, to render parts visible and distinct. How do you get from here to there? How do you separate the image parts visible and distinct? How do you make them whole? How do you give them back their integrity?

And why don't we have an adjective for intègre? Someone who is whole, true to himself. What is he?