"I do not want to hear stories about defeating sadness, they only make me even sadder. I wish to hear stories of befriending sadness and accepting it, I find that so many stories revolve around defeating an emotion instead of becoming one with it.
Such a lesson is told by Sisofas, who throughout their life aspired to most of all avoid sadness and despair and thus lived in luxury and constant pleasure. However, the more he invited happiness and joy to come within himself, the less he had it. The feasts became bigger and the carnal pleasures became more and more frequent as well as more depraved. Eventually, he was not able to find any joy even in the finest of things that the world could offer. The person who was known for their jolly nature became cynical and cold as they were not able to find joy and pleasure from any of the delights he indulged upon. He had banished sadness so far away from within himself that he was unable to feel such a thing, and in its stead was an emptiness, an emotionless void. Eventually he found that the only aspect he could find joy and pleasure in, was the lack of joy and pleasure of other people, or even inflicting it upon them. Perhaps this was jealousy or perhaps this way he was able to see that he still had some happiness left in him after all, as he certainly was not as joyless as those who he inflicted suffering and plight upon.
The ending of that story depends on how old you are, usually if you are younger you are given the more pleasant version of Sisofas getting their fair due and being punished. However, is not such an existence punishment enough, driven to madness having estranged the very things that make you 'you'. But how does one befriend sadness? I do not enjoy being sad, befriending it seems like trying to embrace an hard object covered with spikes, it is not pleasant. There is a certain kind of nostalgia to sadness, I guess, a memory of how you thought things were better, but now they are not. I suppose accepting the fact that somethings do decay, and that we too disappear from the fabric of the ether. Does this frighten you? Eventually all the good and the bad will be gone, the gods will vanish, the sun and the moon shall stop and the world will disappear. From this sadness, something beautiful shall be born, something more beautiful than that which stood before it."