Quote From "The Shack"

"The Great Sadness had draped itself around Mack's shoulders like some invisible but almost tangibly heavy quilt. The weight of its presence dulled his eyes and stooped his shoulders. Even his efforts to shake it off were exhausting, as if his arms were sewn into its bleak folds of despair and he had somehow become part of it. He ate, worked, loved, dreamed, and played in this garment of heaviness, weighed down as if he were wearing a leaden bathrobe - trudging daily through the murky despondency that sucked the color out of everything."

This sadness in Mack's life was due to something traumatic that happened, but I think a lof of people in real life have this as a way of life that creeps up and just is, rather than a result of a traumatic experience. If taken apart, I think it boils down to broken relationship, beginning with something not quite right with a God relationship. This happened to Mack even though he knew God, and I think it can happen to others that know God, but perhaps need a healing in their God relationship, which extends out to engulf other relationship as well. I come from a very large family, but if I look at the individuals in my family, there aren't a lot of close relationships. The individuals, including myself, tend to keep a separateness to them. Computer communication gives a parody of relationship, but not the real thing.