Vulnerability in Happiness

Drop whatever is on your mind right now and picture something for me. Think back to the last time you saw someone get blindsided, in any situation really, a car accident, a quarterback getting nailed, or some kid getting sucker punched. Now, put yourself in that person's position and try to capture exactly how they felt when they happened. Now, for some of us that's an easy feeling to absorb, I mean a lot of people have had something done to them when their guard was down. However, for others I would imagine it is not as easy for them to capture the exact feeling that people go through when this happens. They would obviously find some negativity in it, but, chances are, that they would neglect how horrible this feeling really is. It's something that happens at your most vulnerable point and it just changes how you feel in an instant, and it's really quite unpleasant. However, for those of you who can't a time when they were physically blindsided, I can almost guarantee that you have been emotionally blindsided at some point in your life, and, believe it or not, the feeling that you get is incredibly similar.

I'm sure a lot more people realize this now, since it has been referenced in a few pop culture and media situations, but I didn't know for the longest time that the popular nursery rhyme "Ring Around the Rosie" was actually based off of the Bubonic Plague. For anyone who is hearing this for the first time, I'm sure you're thinking back to yourself and realizing how horribly depressing the reference actually is. It really does make it that much worse as well that they sort of hide it behind this happy little song, and when you find out that it has such a negative underlying context, you almost want to scold yourself for thinking positively about something with such a negative context.

That aside, a lot of poets over the years have taken advantage of this concept to evoke more critical emotions from their readers. Dorothy Parker had a very dark sense of humor that involved both satire and cynicism, and she used this in much of her poetry. Granted, she personally probably found a lot of depressing references to be humorous. Quite frankly, I do agree with her, but only because some of my humor is rather similar, but when I think about the true meaning of the poem, it completely wipes away that humor and gets me depressed.

However, out of all of the poetry and art I have ever encountered, the poem that captures this feeling most to me is "Incident" by Countee Cullen. Through the whole first stanza you get this great feeling reading about a happy little kid probably just visiting Baltimore, and he goes through this horrific experience that ruined his entire trip and probably scars him for a long time. You just feel horrible after you read this because of how badly this little kid gets blindsided. The emotional morbidness of this poem, in my mind precisely captures the feeling of being blindsided, and, after reading it, if you haven't truly experienced how it feels to be blindsided, this poem will definitely do it for you.