Making Pain Productive: How Contemporary Culture Capitalises on Sadness

BEAU CONSTANTINE

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to make light of mental health illness. If you are struggling, please reach out to your loved ones, support networks or a medical professional, you deserve to be listened to and sharing helps.  

“Nothing ever ends poetically. It ends and we turn it into poetry,” wrote Kait Rokowski, collaborative poet and author of Alight. Cue, then, the poeticization, if you will, of our mental health as 1 in 4 people experience mental health problems every year in the UK and 1 in 15 people attempt suicide. We often feel the need to make things matter, to turn our sadness into something tangible… like prose, proverbs and puff pieces that offer generalised digital titbits on how to stop being sad, how to drag yourself out of the slump again, or how to turn that pain into productivity. Is this evidence of our blanket suffering? Is it an effort to make the pain seem worthwhile? Or has our sadness become yet another commodity on which contemporary culture can capitalize? 

The Productivity Complex 

Productivity shouldn’t be critiqued for it isn’t inherently bad, rather it is imperative to our success, personal and professional; it could, however, do with a make-over. As it stands, we face the constant, pecking societal pressure to work – and keep working – even when we are at our wits’ end. We tend to compartmentalise our exhaustion while clawing at the sides, pen in hand to tick off our to-do list. Subsequently, professional burnout is at an all time high, a worldwide survey by DHR Global revealed that 82% of workers experience burnout. 

The rise in hustle culture and the need to grind contributes to the competitive nature of having it all because we have to stay afloat to succeed, even if we’re drowning, right? The constant social media output of day in the life videos add to the begrudging weight of this toxic complex. People the same age as you waking up at the crack of dawn, jogging to work, meal prep in their bag, for their day to culminate at Barry’s bootcamp, all while successfully scaling the corporate ladder. Meanwhile, we, I, watch and wonder how they do it all. Instead we’re offered an inevitable and chirpy sales promotion: “Use code HGRD to get 10% off your next morning greens purchase!” But, of course… our exhaustion is just another avenue for marketing. 

A survey by Deloitte Insights and Workplace Intelligence from 2022 found that over 40% of employees consider themselves to be exhausted or overwhelmed. And, 70% of those in senior leadership positions have considered quitting their job to find employment that supports work-life balance and wellbeing. But without productivity, capitalism cannot function, and thus our productivity is weaponized by the economic zeitgeist, pushing the theory that in order to achieve a good life, we must work, guilt-ridden if we take breaks because the capitalist mindset prioritises wealth over health. 

So, if we must continue to put out, why not make something out of our struggle? Write a novel, a song, a play, another first-class essay, hit those unreachable targets, and prove to them and yourself that you can do it. Buy this product, this planner, this magic electrolyte solution. If we don’t create from the pain it is wasted, then what was it all for? We all know this mindset is toxic, corroding our prospective happiness. So, how do we make it stop? 

A Badge of Honour  

Conjuring up an image of true sadness in our heads is not necessarily difficult. We can create these visuals because we have certain yet unique attributes and experiences that pertain to the uniform of sadness. Dark circles, trembling hands, a hollow face, these visual markers of distress have become a social currency. How often do we hear: “but you don’t look depressed” as if suffering must be visually verifiable to be legitimate. Without an official diagnosis, the only tangible evidence of internal collapse is the way we look, involuntarily letting ourselves go, losing our sense of self, to demonstrate to everyone that we are truly not okay. 

If physical evidence fails, we find ways to trauma-bond, or bluntly, trauma-dump, leveraging our suffering as a means of connection or catharsis. This phenomenon has wiggled its way into everyday discourse, and infiltrates social interactions. 

As sociologist Erving Goffman stated, “When an individual appears before others, he wittingly and unwittingly projects a definition of the situation, of which a conception of himself is an important part.” Goffman’s framework suggests that identity is not fixed but something we continuously negotiate for an audience or rather our peers and ourselves. Consciously or not, the way we present ourselves, shapes how we are perceived and in turn how we perceive ourselves. When we adopt the uniform of sadness, we are not just expressing our emotions, we are performing an identity that aligns with the broader narrative of suffering. This performance signifies depth, acting as an invitation for recognition, admiration even. We may not even grasp the extent to which we are consumed by our sadness until it swallows us whole.  

If we can look depressed and sound depressed, if we could be the most visibly broken person in any given room, how can anyone turn a blind eye? The rise of the sad girl and thought daughter aesthetics reinforce the idea that our sadness is only real if it’s visual and shareable. The quintessential performance of these personas includes listening to sad music (Lana Del Rey or any boygenius member), reading tragic literature (Yanigihara’s A Little Life) and wallowing in endless despair. These cultural markers act as props in contemporary culture, reinforcing an identity rooted in melancholia. And, while some people have found a way to get paid for it via brand deals, PR packages or by publishing a self-help book, most of us just have to live with it. “All the blood was never beautiful, it was just red” (Kait Rokowski)

Romanticise Your Sadness 

Melancholy and beauty go hand in hand, a pairing that has flourished since the 18th century with the development of Romanticism which demands self-reflection and an in-depth awareness of the tragedy that is human life. The Grandfather of Romanticism, William Wordsworth and his literary descendant John Keats both found creativity in this brooding contemplation attempting to articulate something impossibly inexpressible, famously praising nature and imagination as vehicles to find a sense of belonging. Beauty and sorrow became intertwined in a fleeting moment of sublimity. 

Edmund Burke’s notion of “The Sublime” finds beauty in dangerous, overwhelming places. It is structured around three key elements: fascination, non-human power and grandeur, an all-encompassing force that leaves the observer in awe. Romantic poets and authors sought this sublime intensity and explored nature’s dichotomous ability to sooth the mind and cause existential dread.

Perhaps it is easier to render sadness in art, rather than something uplifting which can feel fragile and forced. There is an authenticity and honesty revelling in rejection. Such emotional rawness widely resonates because when we are so sad it can feel like our lives have always been devoid of happiness. Even so, in true Romantic fashion our suffering does not have to be a test of endurance, it can be transformed into something meaningful. Most of the literature and art we consume was born out of a darkness, ripped from the root and put out for all to see. Romanticism teaches us that pain and beauty are not opposites but reflections of one another. 

Next time you feel yourself giving in to that productivity complex, relax, and genuinely rest. Find solace in your sadness but steer yourself away from the need to monetise or glorify it. You don’t need to prove to anyone else that you’re struggling or share it with a doting audience. Take care of yourself. 

(But don’t forget, existential dread can’t exist alone, why not write a novel while you’re at it? There is no time to waste.)

Credit: Hollie-Jasmine Wills