Weltschmerz

So while in the valley I ran out of books to read, and while I usually do not engage in reading "fluffy" books, I couldn't help myself and bought (used of course) Sushi for Beginners. It took a long while to get into it but it did turn out to be a half way decent novel (and it was great for while I was subbing this week and needed to be observing my students also). Toward the end of the book, one of the primary characters is diagnosed with depression and a discussion of the German word "weltschmerz" is offered, which translates to world pain or world sadness. The depressed character feels enormous grief for the state of the world and her inability to fix things for everyone. Having felt this myself, though in shorter bouts of time, I felt I could relate to the character in the story.

Last night I had a similar discussion with someone who I am just getting to know more indepthly, and I almost felt guilty to describe myself as someone who cares more than the average person....about other people, about the state of global affairs, about the environment. When I graduated from high school, one of my male best friends and I were selected as the "Most Caring" by our graduating class. I never knew if that was a compliment or if our graduating class instead felt that we cared TOO much. (And there I go caring about it! :-o)

However sometimes I do not understand how other people do not care at all or how they consistently turn a blind eye to the distress of the world around them. I am in agreement that it is difficult to effectly create change if you are always focusing on the negative, but I also feel you must SEE the negative to have a positive toward which you should be moving. I sometimes wish that for seconds or minutes, all members of our world would have their rose colored glasses removed and really feel "weltschmerz" to become aware of the state of affairs of our world as they truly are. We are the lucky ones as we have the option to put the glasses back on and block out the pain, but in the back of my mind I don't forget the ones who are daily living the realities of weltschmerz.

The last few weeks have brought me several more examples of the struggles of others. During my housing search, I couldn't help but think how much more difficult the searching process would be if I didn't have family to stay with, a decent education, saved finances, and even just access to the internet itself. My heart went out to those without resources and without homes. This week while teaching in the special education classroom at the high school, we also had a 16 year old student who bolted from class one day and then admitted to staff that he was family-less, had not eaten for two whole days, and was living on the streets. Yet, somehow he still managed to come to school. Hearing the stories of other students who live 4 to a camp trailor, whose parents are chronically ill and these students are their primary caregivers, who have been abused and mistreated in ways one does not like to describe nor think about. Going back and visiting the classroom from this summer and seeing the sadness and confusion mixed in with the joy on their faces. What it meant to them to have someone keep her word about visitation and caring.

Oh what a sad world we do live in, yet amongst the sadness we CAN do small and large things to brighten it up a bit. We can't always fix everything (some things I truly believe are "unfixable", severe mental illness being an example), but we all can do things to make our world a better, purer, happier place not just for us, but for those that need it even more. So I must ask....just what WILL YOU do?