Art can make sadness beautiful without making sadness desirable.

A sad song can be beautiful without recommending sadness. What it offers is company: the sense that someone else has been in this and made something out of it. That is different from romanticizing the pain, and confusing the two makes people afraid of anything sorrowful.

If you are in a hard stretch, sad work can be more useful than cheerful work. It does not ask you to feel better and it stops you feeling alone in it. Let it accompany you rather than trying to be talked out of where you are.