January 15, 2024
Greetings from the teeterer,
If you are not familiar with the term, ‘schadenfreude’, it is a German word loosely translated to ‘epicaricacy’. I suspect that is not helpful at all, which gives me a shiver of delight.
What would be helpful is if I would use the word in a sentence. Like: “I named my dog Schadenfreude because I love the character from the book One Thousand and One Nights.”
Your reaction to this example, if it gave you a little thrill of literary superiority, could be described as epicaricacy. If you don’t understand how funny the example is, then it gives me a thrill of literary superiority.
At its most basic, schadenfreude is at the heart of the hilarity of slapstick. If you enjoy the Three Stooges, Laurel and Hardy, or here’s an easy one, the movie ‘Dumb and Dumber’, you have experienced the shallowest edge of schadenfreude. And you are a guy.
My grandson Finley, who I have enormous respect for, recently learned to walk. In that process, he fell down. A lot. This made me laugh until I had pulled a muscle that may not heal. It’s not that I want him to be hurt, or that I am mocking his progress. It is just hilarious. And I am a guy.
I own a dictionary of English words (not trying to brag) and it suggests this definition of ‘schadenfreude’; “Enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others.” Despite this being a German term in an English dictionary, the definition will serve.
When I was a boy I went to confession, and I think if I confessed to Father O’Malley that I obtained enjoyment from the troubles of others he would have given me 1000 Acts of Contrition as my penance. Which would have delighted my sisters, I think. But, there’s more to it.
This weekend I purchased a new light switch for the dining room ceiling fixture. It was a simple fix, the light wasn’t working and through deduction I determined that the switch was defective. Now three switches are broken and the light still doesn’t work. (Pause for epicaricacal laughter)
This morning I was having coffee thinking about that process and how ridiculous it was figuring out which breaker to turn off, going up and down the basement stairs fifteen times to discover which breaker didn’t cut the electricity to the dining room. And it was comical to me, added to the fact that the whole thing was a boondoggle.
If your own boondoggle makes you laugh, is that schadenfreude? Has there ever been a sentence in the history of the world that included boondoggle and schadenfreude?
Yesterday my brother told me that he is trying to trap a gopher, or to be more accurate, all gophers. The one he’s focused on has eluded the trap six times, usually right in front of him. I asked him how many times he will go through this before he gives up and his answer was: “Ten.” Which we both know is a lie. The real answer has not yet been computed by science.
This scene is so hysterical to me that it defies metaphor. I am not looking down my Smith nose at my brother, in truth it’s mostly a delight because we are companions in the idiocy of living. As a side-note, my brother named his dog ‘Lenny’, which is also not a character in the book One Thousand and One Nights.
This delight in seeing the misfortune of others is irresistible, even to the most empathetic soul. And like most things it rests in a spectrum. At one point it is harmless, and then there is a threshold where it crosses into something else.
I hesitate to bring the examples on the more malicious end of the spectrum, but I think you would recognize them when you saw them. Things that might suggest words like gloating and superior, sadistic, cruel, vicious, and what have you. (Funny how ‘what have you’ is another way of saying ‘what you have’ at the end of a sentence that makes it sound like British fancy-pants.)
Any schadenfreude that is inspired by, say, a presidential candidate is probably on that stinky end of the epicaricacatic stick. (I’m proud to say that sentence has never existed before this morning. Makes me a little teary-eyed.)
Humans have a better nature, it is one of the redeeming facts of our species. Yes, we can be grumpy and stingy and sometimes we want to take revenge and we’ve been known to be thoughtless and inconsiderate. Wait, what was my point? Oh yeah, we have our good side too. In fact, it’s why we are all still here.
It doesn’t mean we can’t see the humor in Stan Laurel stepping on a rake, or delight when we get to go ahead of others trapped in construction zone traffic. (Especially that one jerk who has a nicer car than me. I mean us.)
But perhaps we can check ourselves on the spectrum occasionally and see if we are teetering between a harmless laugh at a toddler and perhaps whatever your mom would have described as ‘mean-spirited’. It’s easy to do, and it’s easy not to do.
This is a long way of telling you how much I enjoy a good laugh at my brother’s expense, and truthfully it’s no cost at all. I also enjoy laughing at my own silly antics, and Finley’s and once in a while, yours. But I promise, I mean no harm, I’m merely delighting in the human condition. And still hoping for a better one.
Hope this finds you listening to your better angels,
David
Copyright © 2024 David Smith
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