Weltschmertz

In addition to now being exactly a year since life was changed in the UK by the pandemic, in the last week I’ve witnessed reaction to Meghan Markle’s interview with Oprah, then the reaction to the abduction and murder of Sarah Everard who was simply walking home one evening down streets I used to do the very same thing along many times.

As I write this for my Sunday morning post, I am feeling “weltschmertz”, a German word literally meaning “world pain”. From an excellent article distinguishing “How to Tell Whether You’ve Got Angst, Ennui, or Weltschmerz“:

In German philosophy it was distinguished from pessimism, the idea that there is more bad than good in the world, because while pessimism was the logical conclusion of cool, rational philosophical pondering, weltschmerz was an emotional response.

Rationally I can look to see that the success of Covid vaccinations will see the pandemic restrictions lift soon enough (but not too soon, please!), that though it remains deeply entrenched, awareness of structural racism is and has been leading to positive change over time, that men perpetrating violence of all kinds is similarly something we are all aware of and so is gradually on the decrease.

We can rationalise all of these, yet we cannot rationalise a feeling.

So, right now I feel world weary that it is 2021, I am 55 years old, yet our world still is deeply racist and misogynist. I feel weary, like there is nothing I can do. However, I also know this too shall pass, so perhaps in naming it that is part of the process of shifting towards forward energy and momentum.