When the days get shorter and the nights colder, I can feel the impending embrace of winter depression creeping onto me. Its arms slither across my body, wrapping me tighter and tighter into a cocoon of laziness and sluggishness that confines me to my bed. Funnily enough, I seem to lose interest in everything I habitually do on a daily basis and mindlessly scrolling through reels becomes my top priority. It is at times like these, times when I am completely subsumed by destructive patterns, that the task of romanticisation proves to be beneficial.
When one’s life seems utterly bleak, a great way to force oneself to get out of bed and be productive is by reminding the mind of the silver lining that still exists. This task can start off as small as appreciating and finding joy in the small things- the subtle smell of agarbatti that wafts through the house after morning puja, the loud purrs cats let out when you scratch their necks and the aesthetic pleasure of gazing at the shifting colours of the sunset sky. Or, it can be accomplished by convincing oneself that life is a movie and that we are its main character; or by converting monotonous tasks like making coffee each morning into more notable ones by pretending to be a barista, or by bringing elation into the task of studying by pretending to be “that girl” who has her life together. I personally make use of romanticisation to help pull myself out of depressive episodes. Many others too employ it to make their life easier when faced with difficult situations.
I could go on endlessly about the benefits of romanticising life. But it will be futile without accepting and facing the harsh reality- more often than not, romanticising is extremely detrimental. In the process of pretending to be this and that, in pretending to be happy and fine in all situations to make ourselves feel better, we often run away from our problems. Romanticism feeds into our delusions and makes us believe that ignoring the problem by disguising it with veils of pretence will dissolve our issues. It shows us a flowery side of life, one where everything we do is supposed to go perfectly in tune with how we plan to do it. It leaves no room for errors, or messing up and making mistakes. The fact of life is that all successes are birthed from the remnants of previous failures. By compelling ourselves to think all things in life can be remedied if they are romanticised enough, we set ourselves up for being weathered down by the woes of everday humanistic existence.
Keeping all these downsides in mind, how do we then work around this blatant paradox? In my opinion, the solution lies in self awareness. Using this tool in instances of life whilst being fully aware of all its detriments is the key. If we allow ourselves to slip into a state of fallacious thinking by believing romanticism is the way of dealing with all our problems, no matter how serious, we are sure to face imminent shortcomings. Thus, we must be heedful of this paradoxical nature and apply it in life only as a subtle and small helping hand, one we know won’t magically fix our problems. If we make use of it appropriately, romanticisation of life will prove to be an excellent way to make hardships more bearable and digestible.