Funny word "Schadenfreude"

Dear Bloggers,

Tonight I was watching the Olympic Games and laughed my head off when one of the sportsmen landed pretty wrong on the floor but I have to admit it looked pretty funny. I was really enjoying this guys mishap and realized that this is nasty to have fun about something I could not do myself not even half of it.

Schadenfreude is a German word which is often used as a loanword in English. It means ‘pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.’ Sounds bad, huh? Almost the kind of thing you’d associate with Hitler. Sounds immoral , and heartless.

Funny thing is, it’s everywhere – and we enjoy it.

It seems bad to enjoy the misfortune of others. A common, moral, if not even a perspective would be to help those in need. It seems wrong to allow a person to drown even if our own rights are lesser. Like in the Violinist thought experiment, it would seem wrong to abandon the Violinist even if you had to spend months chained to him. It is ,in our nature, moral and an instinct, to help others. We feel guilty if we don’t (for most folks, anyway.)

However, what I realized is that in every form of entertainment available we all sort of partake in enjoying the feeling of schadenfreude. For instance, take your usual children’s TV programmes, like iCarly (courtesy of my daughters.) In that show, one constant gag (I use gag to show its mediocrity and repetitiveness) is the technician of the show, Freddy, being beaten up and bullied in general by his ‘friend’ Sam. Judging from the…strategic placements of laugh tracks, I assume this must be funny. In one episode he gets reprimanded by the principal, loses his entire locker, has the wall destroyed by Sam’s driving and ,to add insult to injury, loses $200 to the girl. Isn’t that a tad..over the top?

But then this was where I realized that this was actually humorous.

Are we, as sources suggest, all people with low self-esteem who enjoy seeing others fail so we feel better about ourselves? Or are we just happy to see the bad fall? Could someone else’s horrible misfortune possibly be because he or she was ‘bad’ at all? Not really. When you think about it, the feeling of schadenfreude,in this case, would be the derived from the result and not from the process.

What we know is that if the person has bad luck. But whether we enjoy it or not is dependent on what happens afterwards. misfortune often leads to the sad picture of seeing this person fail and even if someone falls on his face, we will find it a sad story. It is a kind of adreneline rush and a lot of disbelief when you see them crash and yes even these pictures might be pretty horrifying. Somehow we want to see this epic ending for ourselves, without a tinge of regret whatsoever. But if this were to happen to a random innocent person it is all of sudden not so funny. Strange isn’t it? How different we can react on these situations. Still we can laugh sometimes about these people making silly mishaps. For example when they mess up their hair by colouring it purple.

Schadenfreude, then, isn’t derived from knowing that others have gone through misfortune and bad luck, but rather, derived from the result of said luck, and also, the conditions surrounding the victim.

And as a result, we all are conditioned – from the very start – to find these events to be entertaining. It isn’t something that is forced onto our minds – it is a feeling, like all the others, that we had in the first place. So we come to the conclusion that -like it or not- we all do enjoy the feeling of schadenfreude. Why the feeling of Schadenfreude exists, would be yet another story.

The Old Sailor,

" we can go camping sometime."

Dear Bloggers,

The title of this blog entry is a quote. But more importantly, it was something that was said to me.... by a weird man. WTF?

I work on commuter busses now, and let me tell you: You run into all sorts of people in this job; whether they be creepy, cool, out of their minds or even normal, WHATEVER. You will eventually run into them all. I think as of right now, I have dealt with more “Strange” people than anyone else. I have had my fair share of run ins with really cool people, but the creepy guys take the cake. It's like they just flock to me. I'm not sure if it's the deodorant I wear, or if it's the cologne I don't wear. All I know is, it has to stop.

One day when I was at work, a passenger came in and he was looking around a bit weird before he sat down, and he immediately started singing. I don't have a problem with people singing; some people just like to have fun. And that's cool. But it's not cool when you are a creepy homeless dude changing the lyrics to, "I want to bomb Iraq," and screaming them when there are friendly customers on the bus. I told him at the next stop to either stop singing or to get off my bus. Then he started shouting at me and I told him to bugger off now.

He eventually stopped shouting and paid for the ride with his chipcard. He left, and I said to myself, "I hope he never comes in again." Well he started to come on my route everyday after that. And do you know what he would do? He would stand right by the busstop in the city centre. No, that's it. Just stand. You thought that I was going to say that we had engrossing conversations day in and day out. No. He just stood there all day being weird. OK, OK. He didn't JUST stand there. He attempted to make small talk here and there, but I wasn't really participating. But you would think that he would get the hint that I don't really want to talk with him.

Now before you guys think I am a jerk, I just need to let you know that I tried talking with the dude, but this guy was out of his lips. He would talk about the same thing everyday. ks.

I will never forget this one day though. He was telling me about a fountain that he goes to daily to pray at. I told him that I have seen that fountain a few times with some friends. I figured that I would be nice and try to have a conversation. He says, "Oh, that's neat." I say "yeah." It was silent for about two minutes after that. At the time, I believe I was writing some counting scores down. As I am writing he says to me, "Maybe we can go camping sometime." Go camping sometime? After two minutes of silence, you break it by asking me to go camping with you? WTF? I have never felt more uncomfortable in my life at that point. I had to let the dude down easy because I didn't know if he was going to kill me and I hardly know him.

Needless to say, he came again after that and asked if I wanted to grab dinner with him sometime. Again, wtf? Now this kills me. It really does. Why can't an attractive girl ask me to go camping with them? Or go out to dinner with them? WHY? Instead I get weird, homeless looking, dudes all over me. Maybe I should go camping with my family.

The Old Sailor,

A shocking message

Dear Bloggers,

This week is the last week before the summer recess of the high schools so it was time to hand in the books for this year and in the evening hours I should bring her to school again for the final schoolparty. Just before we took off to school I got an e-mail from school reporting that one of the students had passed away in the weekend. The kids had to gather after returning the books to hear what had happened. I felt sorry for the parents who had lost their 15 year old daughter.................(I am not many times out of words but this made me silent.)

That means another family has lost a child on leukemia. And it pisses me off.  BUT… i am also glad that I am there, or was there so that it might be easier for her.

It must be horrable and mindblasting to hear, ” She has blasts in her blood.”  ugh.. what does that mean…and there is no time left to overtink it. “You’ll need to admit her immediately.”  ugh, do they mean now at this moment. After the first round at the hospital and the treatment with medication, seeing recovery coming.

Then to hear “She can go back to school if you’re comfortable with that.” Does this make sense?  NO.  None of it makes sense because they’ve just told you that your child has cancer.  WHAT!!!!   Not possible.

So we need Leukemia to come to a hold for all the parents of new leukemia patients out there.  We need a program where we can help newly diagnosed families and give them a bit more hope as their will be more money for research and maybe we could team them up with old jolly busters like me

.

Maybe there should be a person, not just a message board where they can connect and ask the questions that need to be asked.  Do I give certain medication before or after breakfast?  Not that we would be able to answer every question….. but it is sure nice and more human to have someone to ask.

Of course it isn’t just the message that has me up in arms about leukemia , it is a daughter, a family member and only 15 years of age. It could’ve been my girl or your kid or even a schoolfriend of our children.

That does sound harsh and yes this child is gone. But basically what it means to you is that another child was diagnosed with cancer. Leukemia, the 2 year treatment, cancer.  The one with the 95% survival rate at 5 years after diagnosis.  The one where the parents freak out.  Oh, wait, that is all cancer isn’t it.

The school party was cancelled and at school they made a memorial room for this girl, out of respect I am not mentioning names as it must be pretty tough to cope with this loss. My thoughts are with them and I can only send you love.

The Old Sailor,