Sad, Bored, Anxious? Maybe You've Got Weltschmerz
Watching Disney movies when we’re young teaches us that good always prevails and that we all live happily ever after. But when we’re confronted with the real world, we see that this mechanism isn’t always in effect. Looking at all the suffering, the injustice, the treatment of animals, the way we treat each other, violence, war, poverty, grief, the silent desperation that many people find themselves stuck in, we can conclude that the reality of life is not all rosy.
And sometimes, after exposing ourselves to the media, but also when we notice the anguish that’s going on in our own personal environments, it’s difficult to not be moved by the adversity that we encounter. As a consequence of the acute awareness of this pain and suffering, we feel a deep sadness and melancholia. This mental state is also known as Weltschmerz, which is, obviously, a German word.
So, what does Weltschmerz mean? Where does it come from? And what can we do about it? A prince named Siddhartha Gautama lived a very sheltered life. He was destined to become either a spiritual man or a powerful king. His father insisted that his son would rule the kingdom someday, so he tried everything to steer him into that direction. He also knew that exposing his son to the world’s suffering could severely change his course; as the portal to a spiritual journey is the confrontation with a harsh reality.
Because then he’d find out that there’s more to life than endless feasting, beautiful women, material wealth, and power. Despite his father's efforts to make his life as pleasurable as possible, Siddhartha experienced a nagging sense of weariness. So, he decided to escape the palace and explore the outside world. After the confrontation with many types of suffering, like illness, poverty, and death, the veil of blissful ignorance was lifted.
He returned to the palace, and while laying awake in bed alongside his wife and children, another form of weariness kicked in; one concerning the pain of the world. We could say that, for the first time in his life, he experienced Weltschmerz. German Romantic novelist Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, or in short ‘Jean Paul’, first coined the term Weltschmerz. It describes the sadness we feel about the state of the world and its inadequacies.
And also our personal inadequacies as humans that reflect the current state of affairs. It can be literally translated as ‘world pain’. However, ‘world-weariness’ would be a more accurate depiction. In the essay called Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry, Wilhelm Alfred Braun describes it like this and I quote: "Weltschmerz may be defined as the poetic expression of an abnormal sensitiveness of the feelings to the moral and physical evils and misery of existence—a condition which may or may not be based upon a reasoned conviction that the sum of human misery is greater than the sum of human happiness." End quote.
Weltschmerz is different from what the Germans and several other European peoples, including the Dutch, call Angst, which is a type of anxiety that we may experience when we overthink and worry about life in general, our own condition, or nothing specific. Existentialist philosopher Søren Kierkegaard described Angst as a consequence of the infinite possibilities we have as human beings, as we are not bound by instincts like animals. He described it as the ‘dizziness of freedom’.
Even though Angst is not the same as Weltschmerz, it could very well be a part of it, as the despair that comes with the realization of the world’s misery could go together with great fear of what’s going to be. We notice this when we see increasing tensions between the East and the West, for example, or when we stand on the brink of economic collapse. Contemplating the suffering that goes with it today may also evoke anxiety about a future with a high potential of bringing adversity to our doorstep.
Because the inadequacies of distant lands may befall us as well, and this idea makes us anxious. Angst is an experience that can have many different causes, and does not specifically relate to the pain of the world. The same goes for the French word ennui, which is related to the English word ‘annoy’ that points to the dissatisfaction we experience when there is nothing that arouses the passions.
Ennui closely resembles Weltschmerz, but isn’t quite the same. Even though someone with ennui experiences weariness about a world that doesn’t satisfy the senses, it is more hedonistic in nature, and also a consequence of plain boredom that manifests as melancholia and listlessness. Ennui, nonetheless, could be a symptom of Weltschmerz, because when the world evokes so much despair, we are likely to feel utterly dissatisfied with what’s happening around us, so we lose the ability to enjoy, and nothing excites us anymore.
I mean: what’s the point of living when the world is such a dark, hopeless place? At the core of Weltschmerz lies a tension between how we think reality should be, and how reality truly is. As prince Siddhartha, we might have been living a sheltered life. Not only in the physical sense, but also in the ideological sense. When we are metaphorically raised by Disney movies, we could see the world much more positive than it is, and also deny the nature of evil.
And those who do acknowledge the downsides of this world, in a way that is realistic and backed up by facts, will be dismissed as pessimists. The problem with ennui as well as Weltschmerz is that we project our ideals onto reality and, as a consequence, we are disappointed with the outcome. We cannot bear the pain of the world because we think that this pain has no right to be here.
Moreover, we feel entitled to a world that spares us, and also spares other people, and when we discover that it doesn’t, we are unable to reconcile with the idea that we are not entitled to anything but life, complete with all its darkness. People are cruel, selfish, and try to screw each other over every day. Things like war, murder, greed, and violence have been an inherent part of life since the dawn of time.
The wish to banish them is like trying to deny our humanity, which is probably never going to happen until the day that either humans are dehumanized, or erased from the universe. But as the inadequacies of humanity are part of being human, so are ‘good’ qualities like being righteous and compassionate. Thus, the world is a complete spectrum of what we have designated to be good and evil: and if we cannot bear the dark, we cannot bear life itself.
When we suffer from Weltschmerz, we might want to ask ourselves why we keep on resisting what is. What ideals create in us the inability to accept that real life doesn’t work out ideally, but simply the way it works out. In the history of mankind, many people tried to solve the problem of Weltschmerz in one form or another. Prince Siddhartha achieved the cessation of suffering by walking a spiritual path, through which he became enlightened, and later known as the Buddha.
French-Algerian philosopher Albert Camus accepted the idea that the universe is meaningless and indifferent, and that the human tendency to attribute meaning to life is Absurd, and that we should create our own meaning, and enjoy the time we’re given, no matter how bleak and desperate our circumstances may seem. As opposed to Søren Kierkegaard who, even though they shared similar views, believed that the only solution to end despair was a leap of faith.
In his case, the embrace of Christianity. Hence, it’s no surprise that so many people find relief in religion. And then we have the Stoics, who emphasize that it’s not our circumstances that we suffer from, but the position that we take towards our circumstances. So, Weltschmerz should be treated by changing the way we think, and not by trying to change the world.
The fundamental idea that could bring us some consolation, and help us to make peace with the flaws of existence, the human condition, and ourselves, is the Buddhist first noble truth: life is suffering. Birth, aging, death, union with what’s displeasing, separation from what’s pleasing, and not to get what we want is suffering. Yet, all of this is part of life. So it’s no surprise that the world is full of pain. Thank you for watching.