“A man takes his sadness down to the river and throws it in the river
but then he’s still left
with the river. A man takes his sadness and throws it away
but then he’s still left with his hands.”
― Crush
This quote is from one of my favorite poetry books, and I feel like I come back to it a lot when I need some perspective. Within the context of the poem, the line drives the point home that continuous disappointment weighs on the soul. Without the rest of the poem, the meaning flows into some version of "you cannot run away from yourself," (or this overarching monotony.) This perspective remains useful to me when I'm down, because if I cannot run away from myself or this chronic disappointment, I can remember not to sweat the small stuff as much.