Schadenfreude

People in Austria and Germany celebrate my name every year, so I can't help but to return what love I feel in exploring one of my favorite German words: Schadenfreude. If you're not sure what it means, there's no exact word for word translation into English. The dictionary lists it as a noun meaning satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else's misfortune. I admit, I have a guilty pleasure in witnessing Social Darwinism in action.

Case in point: Jackass. The warning before each show states that the stunts were performed by professionals or under the supervision of professionals. But seriously...what in the blue fuck qualifies these walking abortions of being professionals!? Bam Margera and Jason 'Wee Man' Acuna are skateboarders. Does this qualify them then for trading punches and wrecking Bam's house, beating the shit out of his father and causing them to be thrown out of their own home due to his antics? Then of course we have Steve-O, who was recently on a documentary featuring his meteoric rise to fame, drug addiction and eventual intervention by his friends who helped him to put his body into painful stunts, getting him paid for doing so then trying to stop short of actually killing himself. How in the fuck is this man qualified as a professional? How does this label pertain to someone who staples his own testicles to his thighs? I suppose if he does it regularly and is paid for it, it may qualify him for it.

But do you remember the good old days when you saw something unreal or absolutely stupid on television and the movies, and knew enough to NOT do it without a warning label telling you not to? Kids who watched Superman and tied towels around their necks jumping off of roofs was survival of the fittest. If you broke your legs or worse? GOOD! You got what you deserved! And those who survived either grew up and wised up, or even went on to become CEO's in companies or stunt men. Good for you. It didn't kill you, so grow stronger. It's nature's way.

Now there are disclaimers all over the place. Kids see a stunt involving laying in the road in a Disney movie, imitate it and die. No fucking kidding! Then people have the gall...The GALL...to sue the company that made the film because it was WRONG for the stupid children to die. Someone must pay! The film company put the idea into their impressionable heads, make THEM pay! Ahh, the sound of personal denial of responsibility. The parents were the ones suing, all the while knowing that gnawing at their innards was the guilt. Their seed, their DNA, their offspring were the result of Social Darwinism. No one wants to take responsibility that someone didn't teach their unfortunate late term abortions that such an act was STUPID. DANGEROUS. AND IF YOU DO THAT, YOU'RE GOING TO GET HURT OR DIE. AND IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT, YOU PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A PARENT!!

Well, perhaps I'm being a bit harsh. Perhaps I'm simply tired and blowing off steam after a long day's toll of earning copper and a full belly. That could most certainly be it. However, it doesn't stop me from enjoying the stupidity shoveled onto the internet. Videos of children imitating Jackass and injuring themselves all for a laugh. I admit, it's a guilty pleasure of mine to watch. Then again, there's the sick Krampus in me that looks for the bones to break, the fights during hockey, the multiple car crashes during NASCAR. It's horrific, it makes your stomach remind you that you're alive and thankful it's not you in there. But you can't help but watch and enjoy it. Perhaps it's merely a defense mechanism dealing with the unreal shock of it all. Many people hate to be tickled, but love to laugh. Perhaps watching such carnage, of watching people dance the razor's edge of stupidity and living life to the fullest, their triumphs of survival and coming out of it unscathed allows us to vicariously live through them. It's the modern day gladiatorial ring. We cheer for those that survive, but watch in shock and glee when someone falls. It's horrific. It's gruesome. And it's not us. So to let out the tension we feel, we laugh. We may not like to be tickled, but we love to laugh.

I suppose at the end of the day, it all comes down to what tickles us. And where.

Do I seriously mean any of what I wrote? Perhaps all of it. Perhaps none of it. Perhaps I'm feeling a need for a creative outlet with a smattering of profanity to vent the frustrations of the day. It's been a while since I've said or done anything even closely resembling poetic. I feel slightly cleansed from my muse, so I'll bid you Auf Wiedersehen until next time.

May your nightmares remind you how wonderful it feels to be alive,
Krampus