She falls. You leap.

She falls. You leap.

The Difference between Sorrow and Depression (in case you were curious - I actually have more factual research to share on the differences, but I thought this was a beautiful anecdote and so wanted to share it.)

“Another experiential difference between sorrow and depression is brought home in an anecdote concerning the writer James Joyce, and his daughter, Lucia, who was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. Although apparently apocryphal, the vignette makes an important existential distinction. Supposedly Joyce had brought Lucia to the eminent psychoanalyst, Dr. Carl Jung. Joyce was perplexed, regarding the difference between his own idiosyncratic thinking and the convoluted thought processes of his daughter. Jung is said to have replied: "She falls. You leap."

Indeed, we might say that depression is to sorrow as falling is to leaping. Put another way: we are overtaken by depression, but give ourselves over to sorrow. There is, in short, an intentional dimension to sorrow. The priest Francisco Fernández Carvajal tells us that, "...like love, sorrow is an act of the will, not a feeling."

(Reference: Pies, R. (2008). The anatomy of sorrow: A spiritual, phenomenological, and neurological perspective. Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, 3(17). doi:10.1186/1747-5341-3-17)