I tried to jog and could not. It was too life-affirming. I rode along with friends to go swimming and found myself paralyzed. I tried music. But why is this music all so affirmative? Has it always been like that? Perhaps a requiem, that glorious German Requiem of Brahams. I have to turn it off. There’s too little brokenness in it. Is there no music that speaks of our terrible brokenness? That’s not what I mean. I mean: is there no music that fits our brokenness? The music that speaks about brokenness is not itself broken. Is there no broken music?

Sometimes I think that happiness is over for me. I look at the photos of the past and immediately comes the thought: that’s when we were still happy. But I can still laugh, so I guess that isn’t quite it. Perhaps what’s over is happiness as the fundamental tone of my existence. Now sorrow is that.

— Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son