One should never be quick to say yes to despair.  Sadness….yes, but never despair, for sadness is a product of joy, but despair is nothing other than sickness.  Kierkegaard recognized the nature of this.  He distinguished between sadness which had an object and melancholy which knew no such thing.

Related to this, but not the same, is quietism.  I am not talking of the quietism that inhabits so much Nordic and Protestant thought.  That is the quietism of answering to authority and being complacent to it.  It is the quietism that has bred the “my country right or wrong” attitude.  It is wrong, but it not the quietism that broaches on despair.  I am also not referring to that quietism that inhabits the thoughts of those who have rightfully recognized things for what they are and choose to live with it.  This is the quietism that recognizes you don’t control either the tides or the feelings of others.  What I speak of is that quietism that negates decision. Read more