“And generally speaking, the experience of individuality in modern culture is bound up with that of death: from Holderlin’s Empedocles to Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, and on to Freudian man, an obstinate relation to death prescribes to the universal its singular face, and lends to each individual the power of being heard forever; the individual owes to death a meaning that does not cease with him.”

--Michel Foucault in his Conclusion to The Birth of the Clinic, An Archaeology of Medical Perception.

He waited a little longer before replying and then announced: “I suffer from melancholia.” “Well, I never,” I said, unable to suppress a smile,”people who suffer from that are usually people who feel they’re over-privileged. But it’s such a very ancient illness, it can’t be that serious, nothing classical ever is, wouldn’t you agree?”

--Javier Marias, Everything Bad Comes Back (When Was I Mortal)

The article (link below) in the Aeon magazine sparks curiosity in Havi Carel's book Illness: The Cry of the Flesh. Havi Carel is the professor of philosophy at the University of Bristol.

“Sickness is not just the experience of pain and malaise, but also of acute vulnerability in a hostile world that refuses to accommodate itself to your struggles.”

https://aeon.co/essays/can-there-be-anything-good-in-the-experience-of-illness?utm_source=Aeon+Newsletter&utm_campaign=a3f22605ec-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2016_11_08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_411a82e59d-a3f22605ec-69414093