Anxiety is creeping in, but why, what do I have to fear? The upcoming semester paid for by my parents? The upcoming week? My job? Debt? Where is the root of the unease in those thoughts? They are all choices, made by me, followed through without a second thought. Was this a path paved by me, or my surroundings? What if I had been born a bastard son in a single parent home? What then, what anxieties would I possess in that situation? Is there any escape from this lapse of reasoning called awareness? We look down on people who are happy, putting up a facade, wishing we could steal their five minutes of bliss. Is it a chemical imbalance, or is it our natural state of being. Anxiety, desire, pleasure? What are these feelings. They cannot be neccessary; they all lead to a circular path of unrest. Who opened the loop to this state of mind, was it our parents? Did they willingly teach us these dangerous concepts? Situational anxiety. Societal desires. Useless…
I have an anxiety problems. I physically throw up when in a particular situation, and i throw up for a few hours at a time. If it seems that a girl is of easy virtue (sleeps around) then that would and has made me sick. If a girl gives me eye contact, i will throw up, it’s a problem because i am unfamiliar with how to act around girls who may show sexual interest. I haven’t really grow up around girls, i am not religious so it’s nothing religious but rather a panic attack thing almost. If am i also scared of something, i just get a rush through my body and feel hot and keep throwing up.
The ‘mind’ is an amazing thing, because it is all in my head, i make myself believe things which make me throw up.
Not everyone is afflicted by Schadenfreude, de_jesus. That is, I take no Freude in your Schade. You’re a stranger to me, but as a brother I’m sorry to hear of your troubles.
And yet, if we had to wait until everyone on this planet were simultaneously happy in order that any one of us should not be ashamed to be happy, then there’d be no happiness in this world. I’ve no doubt that at this moment people are being brutally murdered somewhere in the world, and yet at this moment I look out my window to the white camomile blossoms in my garden and feel quite happy; that is, I should feel happy.
Given my druthers, I druther that you and I could both experience the Freude of life.
Best wishes,
Michael
I’ve often thought the angst of the human condition is dubiously necessary. Sure, some of it motivates us and adds the jagged edges of happiness hard won, the deep, complex happiness, like opera or caviar (blech).
Or seeing a relative with a disability overcome it, happiness hard won, etc. But also, some of this “hard stuff” is a USELESS BI-PRODUCT OF EVOLUTION. Excuse the caps, but I’m pissed off about it. Look, it’s a mess that needs to be cleaned up. Not moralized about. I’m talking retooling the human brain, the human society, the human world, the human body, whatever, in order to be happy already. And I think we’re well on our way, assuming we don’t f— it up. Philosophers, for the most part, are on my side.
In your case, this talk of a hedonistic imperative, or bio-happiness movements probably won’t help. In the meantime, don’t be afraid to experiment with antidepressants, self-help, and lots and lots of communication and friendships…and to this point, you can check out the COnquest Of Happiness by Bertrand Russell. It’s antiquated and hard to apply, but at least it demystifies the whole business and makes you feel a little less hopeless. Good luck. Hang in there. I am here if you need me.
Hey gamer - we have virtually the same sig!
Perhaps happiness is not to be sought in and of itself, perhaps it is just a concomitant feeling…
Conquest of Happiness, a good book, written in Bertrand Russell’s common sense style, definitely worth the read as Russell was not happy in his early years, like a lot of us. I’m reminded of when Nietzsche said, “The man is more child than the youth.”
Hello Michael. I know what Schadenfreude is, but could you explain what the two root words mean?
Hi Marshall,
Schade = harm or misfortune
Freude = joy or pleasure
Schadenfreude = pleasure at another’s misfortune
BTW, I’d like to mention a book that I read last winter; When Bad Things Happen to Other People, by John Portmann. Portmann delves into Schadenfreude in minute (sometimes too minute) detail.
amazon.com/gp/reader/0415923 … eader-link
Michael
I thought Freude was joy, i’ve read enough Nietzsche to pick up a little German but still pale in comparison to many here. Sometimes shadenfreude seems to be the zeitgeist, here as elsewhere.
What did you learn from that book?
Portmann is heavily into Nietzsche. He contrasts Schadenfreude with Nietzche’s (or, as Portmann reminds us, first Schopenhauer’s) ressentiment, or “transvaluation of values.” If I had to summarize the book in a quote:
“A focus on misery and suffering in the absence of regard for others’ joy and pleasures constitutes a limitation in the moral consciousness of the merely compassionate person.” – ibid, p112
In other words:
Always look on the bright side of life…
If life seems jolly rotten,
There’s something you’ve forgotten!
And that’s to laugh and smile and dance and sing,
When you’re feeling in the dumps,
Don’t be silly chumps,
Just purse your lips and whistle – that’s the thing!
And… always look on the bright side of life…
For life is quite absurd,
And death’s the final word.
You must always face the curtain with a bow!
Forget about your sin – give the audience a grin,
Enjoy it – it’s the last chance anyhow!
So always look on the bright side of death!
Just before you draw your terminal breath.
Life’s a piece of shit,
When you look at it.
Life’s a laugh and death’s a joke, it’s true,
You’ll see it’s all a show,
Keep 'em laughing as you go.
Just remember that the last laugh is on you!
And always look on the bright side of life…
from Life of Brian
Michael
It is hard not to be negative, most of my physical conversations seem to involve me listening to someone whining and occaisonally whining myself. Noone seems to notice the simple joys that surround us everyday, that is one reason i like the optimism of Nietzsche, who said:
Polemarchus,
I enjoyed your post quite thoroughly. Especially the deep meaning I got thinking about within one of your first posts regarding being happy while also knowing that people are dying somewhere. As a critical philosopher I ask myself where do we draw the line? I had a hard time answering my own question. It’s obvious we can’t go around worrying about people all over the earth our entire lives, while it is also obvious that we will worry about those dearest to our hearts who experience…as you put it, schade. As a self, I imagine we are stuck somewhere in the middle. But I believe this middle, balance, or harmony can be easily disrupted by good or bad events in our own lives. Hence, I think it is possible to be truly happy laying in a field looking at the sky and come to think of all those who might be dying. While I also believe the reverse is true and it’s possible to have a bad day and not be moved by someone close to you who experiences Schade, sometimes our priorities need further prioritizing.
I think the key word in all of this is ‘should’. You say that you should be happy looking out your window while you are aware that others are surely dying. While I agree with you, how might we explain this, possibly validate this action in philosophical terms?
I realize we all need our own personal happiness, while I also think that we should put effort into making others happy as well (if we can)…it’s just where to place the line that I am confused about. Any help?
I wish you great Freude,
What’s your take?
Hi Gadfly,
Thanks so much, Gadfly. As Ben would say, “You’re a Mensch.” You wrote:
That’s a good question.
We humans have spent the far greater part of our existence living together in village settings of a dozen to as many as a few hundred individuals. The earliest cities only date back some ten thousand years. Life in small groups had certain advantages. We knew everyone. And if someone cried out for help it would have been unthinkable not to respond to him or her. In those days, an old man might truthfully claim that he never heard a cry for help that he didn’t answer. If someone were drowning he tried to save them, if their house were burning he helped to extinguish the fire. Of course, there were other villages, and some of those villages suffered through famine, disease, and other natural disasters. But this old man knew as much about their plight as I know about a suffering alien civilization on the other side of our galaxy.
Contrast that situation to our situation today. Today we live in a community of some six billion individuals. We can’t turn on the radio or logon to the Internet and not hear cries for help. These cries for help have become the background noise of our lives; they never cease. And given that we ignore them as a matter of routine, who among us can now claim innocence? In fact, we’ve lost the luxury of ignorance. The Chorus said to Oedipus:
“Ignorance made you happy. The truth has made you blind.”
If not blind, then at least deaf. We’re so overwhelmed by these incessant cries for help, that we’ve taken Odysseus’ warning to his crew and stuffed our ears with wax in order not to hear them; or something more impervious than wax. Who of us would be lashed to the mast with our ears open to the wailing of the damned?
Last evening I heard the horrid details of genocide presently occurring in the Darfur region of Sudan. And there was a report of some one hundred persons violently killed yesterday in Iraq. This international horror show was followed by local news: the day’s traffic fatalities, a drowned kayaker and a case of child molestation.
What am I going to do? An old moral rule-of-thumb is that ought implies can. Right, then what can I do? It’s within my power to lift any one starving, diseased child from among the wretched masses - to feed and clothe that child. Or, I could pick that one…or that one. If I got a second job I might be able to support several such children. If I sold my house and chose to live, myself, in a cardboard box, then I might help quite a few of them. But no matter what I do, I can’t help them all. It’s not within my power to lift-up more than a few precious drops out of this vast sea of despair. Where do I draw the line? What is expected of me?
The proper question, I think, is “What do I expect of myself?” I have decided to remove the wax from my own ears. If there are cries then I’m at least going to hear them. I’ve decided to live simply and to give a measure of aid to the impoverished. I’m not helping any one child a great deal; I’m helping many children, each by a small measure. In Book Eight of his Republic, Plato wrote:
â€Societies are not made of sticks and stones, but of men whose individual characters, by turning the scale one way or the other, determine the direction of the whole.â€
And so I will place my shoulder against this immense load. And yet, I’m no Albert Schweitzer. I haven’t chosen to work my life away in order to give more. That’s something I shall have to live with. Ghandi eloquently remarked, “We must be the change that we wish to see in the world.” Sartre, as well, stressed the fact of our unavoidable responsibility for the world.
As I said earlier, if each of us were ashamed to laugh so long as any one of us is wretched, there would be no laughter in this world. We’ve lost our innocence and I can live with that. But a loss of joy is something I will not live with. I’ll either live joyfully or I’ll not live. And given that living means living joyfully in a world amid the suffering, then that’s what it amounts to. It’s not within my power to end all suffering. What is within my power, is to live joyfully. That’s what I have chosen. That’s why I say that looking at the chamomile blossoms in my garden should make me happy - even as genocide rages in Darfur.
Regards,
Michael
Friedrich Nietzsche says:
[i]We are unknown, we knowers, to ourselves … Of necessity we remain strangers to ourselves, we understand ourselves not, in our selves we are bound to be mistaken, for each of us holds good to all eternity the motto, “Each is the farthest away from himself” – as far as ourselves are concerned we are not knowers.
[/i]If it is any comfort to you, consider this: How is it possible for the man who designed Voyager 19, which arrived at Titania, a satellite of Uranus, three seconds off schedule and a hundred yards off course after a flight of six years, to be one of the most screwed-up creatures in California – or the cosmos? (He is currently confined to a mental institution.)
Why is it that of all the billions and billions of strange objects in the universe – novas, quasars, pulsars, black holes – you are beyond doubt the strangest?