Once a year I go through my wardrobe and
pick out clothes I no longer use.
After having made sure that all the items are clean and up
to the standard needed in order to be put on a shelf to
be sold, I take them to our local Salvation Army
OP-shop.
Usually, after handing over my bag/s of items, I spend a bit of time
browsing the shop because I have discovered that sometimes,
one can come across some amazing bargains.
As the saying goes; one person's trash can be another person's
treasure.
Wandering about the shop just a few days ago I came
across a sad looking soft toy that I at first thought
was some sort of bunny, but after a closer look, realized
that it was a bear in a bunny costume.
Whatever he/she? was, there was just something about
the expression on his "face'' that made me feel that
I just had to bring him home with me.
When I had another closer look at him the next morning,
suddenly out of nowhere a word from the dark
recesses of my mind popped up: ''Weltschmertz''.
He, now named Buddy, was looking to me as if he was
experiencing ''Weltschmertz''.
Weltschmertz is a German word and translates into
''world-weariness'', and or ''world-pain''.
It's not a word I can remember ever having used before,
but somehow, there it was.
Time for some research methinks.
Before I could speak any English, I could speak
some German. Though I grew up in Sweden, my mother
and the rest of her relatives are all of German origin.
During the early days of W. W. II, my grand-father
realized that in order to survive the war, he and his family
had to leave Germany.
As Sweden was a ''neutral'' country at that time,
that's the country to which my grand-father took his family.
Although both my grand-parents had died by the time
I hit double digits, surprisingly I do remember a lot of German
words. Somewhere along my early years I guess I must
have heard the word Weltschmertz used.
Anyway, my understanding of the word is that
it is a kind of prevailing sadness rooted in thoughts
and worries about the precarious and volatile state
of our planet and its inhabitants.
Although one could ask: is it not the same as
feeling depressed or worried about life in general?
Those in the know suggest that it is deeper than that.
They suggest that it is more of an existential weight
of feeling that our ideals of how the world ought
to be, could be, should be, just don't line up.
This then may result in a profound sense of
disillusionment and loss of hope for a predictable future.
Insight: every time we get stuck
in thinking along the lines of ''should be'', do
we perhaps ''bind'' ourselves with perceived expectations of
thinking that we all share the same values, moral convictions,
ideals and fundamental notions of what's ''right'' and ''wrong''?
What if we were to let go of hanging on to hard to
''how things/the world/people should be'' and
instead loosened our grip on our expectations?
What if we were to let go of our limiting expectations of
how life/things ''should be'', then perhaps we would
be able to experience how life/things could be?
Life, as far as I can ascertain, is the more precious
because it consists of so, so, so, so many possible
ways of interpreting and understanding our
life experiences.
Standing in front of the mirror one day, it
suddenly dawned on me that I have only ever
seen my own face through something else, not
with my own eyes. Even when we look at a photo
of ourselves, what we see may be very different
to what someone else sees.
In other words, if something(an experience) is dependent on
a mind, then it is always subjective.
Why so? Because those in the know say that we interpret
whatever we experience through a number of filters such as:
biases, perceptions, opinions, previous experiences
and belief-systems.
That is, by-passing our expectations, filters and biases
may prove to be very difficult, if not impossible.
However, whatever our expectations, filters and biases
may be, once we become aware of them, they can
be altered.
In my view, having moments when one feels
disillusioned, sad and weary when pondering some of the
things us humans do to the world and each other, is okay.
Actually, sometimes sadness can motivate us to
seeking change, not only for ourselves, but also for others.
''The good life is not one immune to sadness but one
in which suffering contributes to our development.''
(Alain de Botton)
''If sadness comes your way,
and you wanna push it far away,
maybe ask yourself instead:
what it may be trying to say.''
(Citizen Z)
about the image: ink on paper, some editing in Elements
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