The ballads of the “easily sad” old boy

I’m a happy man. No, let me clarify that. I’m not a man yet despite being almost thirty. I prefer to use “old boy” to describe myself, a term that has nothing to do with that fantastic movie (but seriously, go watch it folks, the original Korean version of course).

So yeah, I’m a happy old boy. I was born in January 1990, a really ripe age to have fun in everything I do. I have a nice job with a really good pay and interesting job desc that will make (and already made) a lot of people jealous. I am single but currently in a position that, according to some of my friends, is the best moment between single and … whatever inside the Schrödinger’s Box. I have family and friends that (hopefully) love me. So yeah, I’m happy. I should be happy!

But that‘s not the case with myself now. Often times I don’t feel happy, and I can feel really really sad without any clear reason. I can be happy for a second, and then be extremely sad in the next.

Am I going through a phase? Not really. I mean last year I went through some shits, but it’s all in the past now, and so far this year has been treating me extremely well, to the point I always expect some horrible things might appear to balance things out soon enough.

I socialized with various groups of people. From school buddies, colleagues, internet friends, families, and many more. And I’m not a socially awkward person, at least most of the time. With all that, I should be an extremely happy person. But yet, here I am, writing a random stuff about being sad even though it’s already past midnight and I need to go to work tomorrow.

So why do these feelings often happen? I have some theories myself. Some of them are weird, some others are less weird. Without any scientific backup, these might be the reasons why I can get sad so easily:

I listen to excessive amount of post-rock musics

I love post-rock musics. I only started listening to them around six or seven years ago, but they are the genre I listened to the most now. It is well known fact, and joke, that post-rock is a music for hopeless people that want to be sad and romanticizing whatever sadness they are feeling now.

Most of the songs from this genre will bring you calm, sadness, concentration, and put you in deep thoughts. All the perfect ingredients to swim into the depth of sadness.

Even as I’m writing this, I’ve been listening to Mono (including their saddest album, the one featuring World’s End Girlfriend) nonstop for the past few hours. And I’m enjoying every moment of sadness, and sometimes anger and hope, from all their songs.

I’m a hopeless romantic guy

Yes, I love sappy romance stuff. Love Actually is actually one of my most favorite movie, How I Met Your Mother is so enjoyable and relatable for me, I’s and Chikan Otoko are two of my most favorite manga of all time, and I love ICO so much because of how it shows the relationship between the characters in such a fantastic way (even though it’s not an obvious romance story).

What does it have anything to do with being randomly lonely and sad? I don’t know. But maybe things that I like is a good indicator on why I’m constantly having this feeling.

I’m simply an emotionally unstable person

Oh man, if you knew me personally, you will definitely realized that I’m a really emotional person. I can get mad so easily, I can be sad in a few minutes after that, and it’s so damn easy to make me happy. This probably plays big role in fucking up my mood swing. Something I promise will try to control, but always failed miserably. Damn it!

I have (according to a random article I found on the internet) chronic loneliness

This article will explain it much better than I’ll ever be, so just read it!

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person with this problem. Heck, most of people around my age probably experienced the same thing. But I just need to get it out of my head. And because I love writing, and I really need to practice my English writing skill, this is the thing I did to express myself.

Funnily, after writing everything above, I don’t feel sad anymore. Writing is a really magical activity I guess. God knows when I will randomly feel sad again in the future. But if it does happen, I think I can rely on writing. Probably.