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Sadness, the muse of artists and the cross of madmen, differs from depression, the cold, hard clinical turn of phrase for a "downturn in mood," which is, after all, itself mere metaphor. Under sadness's auspices, great works have been created, for it itself is a cousin of truth: the understanding that we are a prisoner of our environments, genetics, and fate.

A close examination of the arts reveals that tragedy is the highest and noblest activity of man. Animals do not suffer existential crises or explore questions of morality. They merely exist. But man, with all the potential and pain that logic allows, seeks a higher truth, and rejects--slowly, inexorably--the dictates of his physical existence.

Shakespeare, generally considered one of the greatest people to ever exist, achieved his foremost heights with his tragedies, Hamlet being the prime example. This bard of the 17th century first touched upon the essential meaninglessness of the human condition, presaging existentialism by 350 years. By revealing how even the most powerful (a heir apparent to the throne), was but a mere puppet to the vagaries of fate, Shakespeare advanced the thesis that we can only resign ourselves to the inevitable. This flash of truth, this beam of harsh light in the darkness, calls to us, dwellers of the 21st century, even now, just as the more crudely laid-out dictates of Greek Stoicism still resonate today.

The essential argument against comedy is that it is a blindness. To all creatures the pull of Dionysus calls, but inevitably, the hang-over follows the drunken revelry, and the consequences of our egoism come down upon us to punish our shortcomings.