Hey Mr. Tambourine Man, Play a Song For Me. I'm Not Sleepy and There is No Place I'm Going To...

My favorite scene in my favorite movie involves Orlando Bloom dancing on a country road with one hand waving freely in the air. Leading up to this moment, these words of Kirsten Dunst broadcast loudly from the speakers:

"Sadness is easy because it's surrender.

I say, make time to dance with one hand waving free!"

In light of times that make sadness the easiest option, I have recently chosen to follow this philosophy. Happiness is better, I tell myself. Happiness is so much better. But sometimes, those single moments when the only thing you can think to do is cry your eyes out and lie down and let the world pass you by, sometimes- you have to give up and be sad. Sometimes, being sad is being happy--in sadness.

I have come to recognize the beauty of melancholy. As an absolute optimist in every situation, I welcome a few moments of sorrow. Sometimes it's nice to sit down for five minutes/3 hours and just let it go. To stop holding back and just let my emotions take the lead. It helps me so much. It makes the world so much clearer.

I am certainly not disagreeing with Elizabethtown, I am just embracing it. I believe that happiness is found in everything, especially in beauty. I find beauty in sadness, and therefore I find happiness in certain kinds of sadness too.

So in all of your greatest failures, lie down in whatever free flowing field that surrounds you and smile to yourself- through your tears or hysterics- and remind yourself that this is evidence of the wonderful roller coaster of life in which you are taking part. Remind yourself that hard times point more directly to God than easy times.

And God? God is good.

Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky

with one hand waving free

silhouetted by the sea,

circled by the circus sands,

with all memory and fate

driven deep beneath the waves,

Let me forget about Today until Tomorrow.

-Bob Dylan, Mr. Tambourine Man