Monday Mood: Sorrow

This is another heavy Monday Mood. I'm keeping this one short. It is about Sorrow.

Sorrow is an emotion that is more than sadness and borders on resignation. It is closely related to regret, which I covered last week.

Writer Alexander Faulkner Shand related sorrow to be the result of an interruption of an impulse (his theory connected sadness, fear, anger, and joy as primary emotions). In Shand's view, the results of sorrow are split between clinging to the object of sorrow and seeking to repair damage to the object that caused the sorrow. He related sorrow as the root of pity. Psychologist William McDougal disagreed with Shand and cited Shand's own admission that sorrow came from those four simpler emotions. McDougal supported his theory with grief, a form of sorrow that does not include an impulse to repair any injury. Additionally, he reasoned that sorrow contains emotional pain while pity does not and thusly stated that sorrow is not the root of pity.

To me, sorrow is emotional suffering due to grief and regret. Mourning the peaceful death of a loved one is an example of sorrow. While an unexpected death (such as that of a child) might cause one to cling to the expired life, a peaceful passing of an aged relative is generally looked upon as a blessing. Mourning in each situation is different and I would call the former anguish while the latter would be sorrow.

Love is love, no matter the back story. <3 DS