As the days grow shorter and the end of the year approaches once more, I find myself thinking about one emotion more than ever: yearning. To yearn for something or someone is to long for them in the most extreme sense. “Yearning” is one of those words that is multifaceted and all-consuming. It’s a verb, noun, and adjective all at once. It describes, pinpoints, and can be acted out. You can see it, feel it, act it, and know it; it’s deeply personal to the individual — yet so connected to the human experience that it can never just be someone’s own. Yearning has shaken the world and turned it on its head more than once, and will continue to do so long after this article has been posted, read, and forgotten.Â
Lately, yearning has been trending as it relates to art. Music, movies, books, and shows that demonstrate yearning have been trending. Characters who yearn, such as Conrad Fisher in The Summer I Turned Pretty, have been applauded and revered. Phrases like “A man who yearns are a man who earns” have been added into mainstream vernacular. This recent attention to yearning has made it incredibly clear that we are in a period of yearning, a yearning season if you will. This yearning season, I have loved and consumed music, movies, and art that, to me, encapsulates yearning and what makes it so special.
It is impossible to talk about the yearning season and not talk about Jeff Buckley. If yearning ever became personified, it would be in the form of this man. There seems to be no greater indicator that the yearning season is here than the recent rise in popularity of Buckley’s works. As you fall deeper into Buckley’s discography, one thing becomes clear: this man yearns and longs and loves to an incredible level. No song seems to be a better example of this than Buckley’s hit “I Want Someone Badly.” This song expresses the web of sadness, desperation, and fear that wanting someone brings. Something interesting about Buckley’s music is that he yearns not just in his lyrics but in his voice, too. With each note he sings, his desperation and longing are felt in a way that few others can express. He is so important in the study of arts that express yearning, as he’s so masterful in his yearning that he makes an art of it.
One of my favorite forms of media since I was young has been romcoms; it feels necessary to mention them in the context of yearning, as so much of this genre is just that. When I think of the great romcoms: Bridget Jones’s Diary, When Harry Met Sally, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, yearning for the other is the bulk of these films. In nearly every great romcom, the couple actually being together doesn’t happen until the end. The period of discovery and longing is typically the journey we see in romcoms. I think this is because love tends to be very simple and strong, at least true love. A film about love wouldn’t be as interesting as a messy film of want and yearning. Love is definitely romantic, but not always comedic. In a romcom, the com is just as essential as the rom, and this is where a tale of yearning shines. There is something hilarious about the idiocy that yearning can make people stoop to, think Heath Ledger singing “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You” in 10 Things I Hate About You. This iconic scene is hectic, messy, and ridiculous enough to keep people hooked decades later. Yearning doesn’t end once the guy gets the girl. It is possible to long for someone you are in a relationship with, but the security of a healthy relationship wouldn’t have the schemes, insecurities, and desperation that every romcom has. This means that the period of yearning for someone who seems unattainable is what helps make a great romcom: fulfilling both the rom and the com.
To me, the art of yearning means two things: the art of the emotion itself, and the art whose creation has been fueled by the feeling. The art inspired by the emotion persists, similar to the feeling, as tales and music about yearning continue to be relevant decades later. The popularity of yearning art makes sense when you look at the art of the emotion itself. Yearning is an incredibly powerful feeling that captures the soul in a state of complete longing. To even call such a powerful word just an emotion seems to undermine the power of this word; a symptom of the human condition seems more apt. This is because, despite the fact that yearning often feels larger than life, it’s a very human emotion. Many people of all ages experience yearning, just as the art created by yearning persists for decades; similarly, the feelings of yearning will persist for as long as there are people. This is an incredibly beautiful dynamic that can’t be seen as anything other than art.
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