The ISP

They walk among us, in great numbers. They are us.
The Incredibly Sad People.
The ISP.

"He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day his heart would descend from his chest into his stomach. By early afternoon he was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for him, and by the desire to be alone. By evening he was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of his grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone even in his loneliness. I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others--the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad. Because his life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. He would fall asleep with his heart at the foot of his bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of his at all. And each morning he would wake with it again in the cupboard of his rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by midafternoon he was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. I am not sad."
 - Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated

This same guy also said "You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness." There are the ISP who are like the man from the story, who lie to themselves for the sake of illusion of the past. There are also those who lie to themselves for the sake of illusion of the future. They know they are sad, they admit it freely, at least part of the time, they will feel it all for the sake of the glimmers of happiness they may capture throughout the day. Brief, but serene, especially on the background of everyday sorrow. It might be better, this way, as they may learn this way. It might be better someday.