Absolutes

Primo Levi said there was no such thing as absolute happiness, 'but there's no such thing as absolute misery either', which would be a comforting thought, I suppose, if true. And more than comforting; heroic, to think that the level of external misery that Levi (for instance) underwent cannot generate absolute miseries. But a part of me thinks the absolute in unhappiness will be generated internally, not externally; and that Levi makes his statement in the teeth of the experience of depression in its fullest form. Of course, Levi knew something about the darkest depressions, too.