Anhedonia

Many people probably define themselves by their emotions, be they feelings of happiness or love. But what if one’s emotional world is nothing but a grey landscape?

Anhedonia is a little-known condition. Those affected are no longer able to experience positive emotions. Even more sadly, negative emotions such as anger and grief can be all the more intense as a result.

But what does a life without joy mean? In practical terms, you learn to rationalise to yourself that you have probably just experienced something that could make you feel joy.

What does a life without love mean? On one hand, the fallacy that relationships based on chaos and extreme situations are the only ones in which one can feel anything. On the other hand, thousands of sad moments in which another person says ‘I love you’ and you repeat those words robotically, without feeling them. But how is one even supposed to explain that to another person?

For a few years, you still believe that you just need to meet the right person, and then the greyness will lift. Eventually, that illusion dies. Then the question remains: am I even alive? Do I have what makes a person a human being?

But reality turns out to be even harsher. Of course, shutting down positive emotions is a defence mechanism of the brain. But this often also means that, at some point, you were at least able to feel something, however faintly. And so you long for those feelings, which now live on only in your memory. You want to feel it all over again, but no matter what you try, your inner self is dead.

I think I deliberately chose a very emotional sound for ‘Anhedonia’. Because, as I’ve already mentioned, those affected by the condition are all the more able to feel negative emotions. Perhaps that’s the challenge of this song – that you can empathise with people’s pain and hopelessness. The longing for joy… for love.