Grief does not follow rules. People judge how you should cry—too much is fake, too little is cold. But feeling all emotions deeply is what makes a human being beautiful. Make art out of your suffering. That is what great artists have always done.
Shafiya Showkat
When I was in college, I had a classmate who was the sweetest person ever. We were good friends, and sometimes when we hung out, she would pay for the snacks we bought from the canteen, even tho ugh she didn’t have to. We were not close enough for her to feel comfortable sharing her personal problems with me. In fact, most people who were close to me in college never really shared their deeply personal struggles. They would talk about exams, assignments, or rant about annoying teachers. I was never the person who could solve anything anyway.
Then one day, I got a text: “That girl committed suicide.”
I didn’t know what to say or how to react. It was one of those moments where you feel grief in the most frightening way possible, but you just can’t cry. I walked back home and kept thinking, what could have been the reason? How can people be so… I don’t know… foolish, or maybe even brave, to take their own lives? Life can obviously get overwhelming, even unbearable at times, but how do people give up entirely?
Recently, I decided to write a dissertation for my Master’s degree. It was optional; I wouldn’t even get credits for it, but in the heat of the moment, I submitted my application. Since then, every day I’ve questioned my decision. Why am I doing this? I should just opt out. I should just give up. And yet, every day I continue, reading primary sources, secondary sources, articles, even scrolling through Instagram reels while unconsciously looking for material I can use.
It’s strange. I cannot even give up on something as simple as a non-credited assignment, and yet people out there are giving up on their lives. How overwhelming can grief really be?
Grief is like that depressed, annoying, pessimistic friend we all have. You sit with it, talk to it, try to make it understand that life is worth much more than its failures. And then the next day, that same person is writing stories, going places, and posting moments on Instagram.
But when you give grief the power to make decisions, it makes sure you suffer. It feeds on emotions. It convinces you that the world is nothing but a garbage can that will always smell rotten. Grief is just an emotion, and as long as you treat it as one, it helps you grow. But when you treat it as the most important presence in your life, it betrays you. It hurts you. It tramples over your mind and shatters your self-confidence, much like people sometimes do.
Recently, I watched Inside Out, a film that explores the emotions that govern the human mind. It begins with Joy trying to keep everything together by pushing Sadness as far away as possible. But by the end, they realise that what truly makes a human mind, and a human being, beautiful is the ability to feel all emotions, and to feel them deeply.
It all depends on how you feel, and how much.
As Arundhati Roy writes in The God of Small Things, people have created laws for everything. There are “love laws” that dictate who should be loved, and how, and how much. In real life, too, there seem to be unspoken laws that dictate how one is allowed to grieve. When someone dies, there are expectations about who can grieve, how they should grieve, and how much is acceptable.
For example, in our village, a young woman died, and her brother lost his mind with grief. He wandered around aimlessly for days. People judged him because apparently, “you cannot grieve like that.” If a loved one dies, you can cry, but not too much, or you appear fake; not too little, or you seem cold.
We forget that grief does not follow rules.
I remember when a relative of mine passed away. I called their family after three days and heard laughter. I was young and confused. Why were they not sad enough? But later, I lost people, too. I barely cried for more than a few hours, yet I think about them all the time. They live in my memories, in the good moments we shared. I remember them, I pray for them, and that is my way of grieving.
That friend died four years ago, and I still think about her. I write about her. And perhaps that is the grief that drives me.
I am writing this just to say that grief and sadness are such underrated emotions. Everyone tells you: don’t be sad, don’t grieve, don’t cry. But I would say, please be sad once in a while. Please grieve as much as your heart needs to. And if you must cry, then cry fully, honestly.
But take something meaningful from it.
Make art out of your suffering; that is what great artists have always done. People say, “Don’t let bad things define you.” But only you truly know your story. So let it be a blend of everything that has ever happened to you, the good and the bad.
People survive the deaths of their parents, their children, their partners. Life continues, that is its strange, undeniable truth. It keeps moving, endlessly.
Ending your life over bad grades, a broken relationship, or a bad job is probably not worth it. Wait for your ending, it will come anyway. You don’t want to ruin a perfect story by tearing out its final pages.
Read the entire book.
I repeat, go through the entire book.
The writer is pursuing an MA in English Literature from Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi
sh***********@***il.com