Sometimes you need a German word.
Jul. 30th, 2019 12:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
angledgeSometimes there is a word in one language that doesn't really have a direct, word-to-word translation to another language. It's like one group of language users found a need for expressing a particular concept, made a word to express that concept, but other groups of language users never got around to that specific concept. So if you're speaking one of the languages that is missing that word, you have to borrow.
German language speakers seem to have covered a bunch of concepts that English speakers somehow missed. And today the word I need to borrow is Weltschmerz. Literally, I think it translates as "world pain", but it is used to mean: "profound depression regarding the human condition or the state of the world".
Today I have Weltschmerz. I have lost faith in humanity, both in most of the individual instances of the species & in our collective institutions. We aren't going to treat each other with decency & kindness. We aren't going to address climate change. We aren't going to prioritize healing over warfare. We aren't going to learn the lessons taught by history. We are cruel, petty, vicious, untruthful, & deeply sick. We deserve to die. We don't deserve to take our entire biosphere down with us, but we probably will. We will cause each other immeasurable misery, destroy uncountable wealth, & fight each other to our final breaths over the last tattered scraps of Eden.
At the last church service I attended, my pastor preached that we need an apocalypse. Apocalypse, he said, strips away all falsities & shows all things as they really, truly, fundamentally are. When apocalypse comes, you can't argue any more about data, or the liberal media, or gaslighting, or bias -- because those things are all swept away in an overwhelming flood of Truth, pure & undiluted. Shit gets really Real. I want that. I am so tired of doubting my own sanity because basic facts are being debated. I am so worn down with trying to convince people (including myself) that their own self-interest is not the highest good. I am so weary of trying to determine how I - a mote, a speck - can make the slightest difference with my actions.
How I am supposed to care about my retirement plan, or exercise goals, or relationships, or spiritual path, when it all seems so pointless?
German language speakers seem to have covered a bunch of concepts that English speakers somehow missed. And today the word I need to borrow is Weltschmerz. Literally, I think it translates as "world pain", but it is used to mean: "profound depression regarding the human condition or the state of the world".
Today I have Weltschmerz. I have lost faith in humanity, both in most of the individual instances of the species & in our collective institutions. We aren't going to treat each other with decency & kindness. We aren't going to address climate change. We aren't going to prioritize healing over warfare. We aren't going to learn the lessons taught by history. We are cruel, petty, vicious, untruthful, & deeply sick. We deserve to die. We don't deserve to take our entire biosphere down with us, but we probably will. We will cause each other immeasurable misery, destroy uncountable wealth, & fight each other to our final breaths over the last tattered scraps of Eden.
At the last church service I attended, my pastor preached that we need an apocalypse. Apocalypse, he said, strips away all falsities & shows all things as they really, truly, fundamentally are. When apocalypse comes, you can't argue any more about data, or the liberal media, or gaslighting, or bias -- because those things are all swept away in an overwhelming flood of Truth, pure & undiluted. Shit gets really Real. I want that. I am so tired of doubting my own sanity because basic facts are being debated. I am so worn down with trying to convince people (including myself) that their own self-interest is not the highest good. I am so weary of trying to determine how I - a mote, a speck - can make the slightest difference with my actions.
How I am supposed to care about my retirement plan, or exercise goals, or relationships, or spiritual path, when it all seems so pointless?
