Drunkenness is the mother of joy, as is vigor. What does this mean? Why does drunkenness not cause melancholy? First, because melancholy derives from truth, not falsehood, and drunkenness causes us to forget the truth, and only from that forgetfulness can joy be born. Second, men in the state of nature, that is, in a state of vigor much greater than that of the present, were meant to be happy and abandon themselves to illusions and see and feel them as if they were living and bodily presences (98).
Leopardi, Giacomo, and Michael Caesar. Zibaldone