Since many other answers treat the more general ideas, I want to focus on the “volontary” sadness of reading/watching/listening sad stories. I was curious about this myself, because I noticed that reading only “positive” and “joyous” stories eventually feel empty.
The answer seem that sad elements in a story bring more depth than the fun/joyous ones. In that sense, sadness in stories act as a signal of deepness, but also a way to access some deeper part of our emotions and internal life.
I’m reminded of Mark Manson’s quote from this article:
If I ask you, “What do you want out of life?” and you say something like, “I want to be happy and have a great family and a job I like,” it’s so ubiquitous that it doesn’t even mean anything.
A more interesting question, a question that perhaps you’ve never considered before, is what pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out.
Maybe sadness and pain just tell us more about other and ourselves, and that’s what we find so enthralling.
Since many other answers treat the more general ideas, I want to focus on the “volontary” sadness of reading/watching/listening sad stories. I was curious about this myself, because I noticed that reading only “positive” and “joyous” stories eventually feel empty.
The answer seem that sad elements in a story bring more depth than the fun/joyous ones. In that sense, sadness in stories act as a signal of deepness, but also a way to access some deeper part of our emotions and internal life.
I’m reminded of Mark Manson’s quote from this article:
Maybe sadness and pain just tell us more about other and ourselves, and that’s what we find so enthralling.