Words Cannot Express

Scheudenfraude ... The wonders of the internet allow me to check the spelling of this complext German word - scheudenfraude - while finding
multiple examples of it; the feeling of satistaction at seeing the downfall of one you might dislike or envy. Now, one word can make up for a whole sentence.

Mike Savage on his radio show was declaiming about how the Romans had 14 words for love while we English only have one. It seems that in our complex world, our words cannot express fully that mixed bags of emotion, thought, attitude and reaction we engage in at times in dealing with complex situations. The Germans get such a precise word, scalpel-like in its ability to cut to the point, when we find ourselves facing familiar, yet complex, situations, that deserve more potent descriptors. Some thoughts - and words - on what I mean.

"I meant to do that." There's a scene in the movie "PeeWee's Big Adventure" where Pee Wee does some bike tricks, finds himself doing too much, falls off his bike, and tumbles on the lawn and ends upright in front of a group of kids. "I meant to do that", he tells them; ah, the act of turning a mistake into a claimed triumph. Post-hoc-triumphalism!

I can't quite get away with that when I find myself mid-morning having had my pants fly undone for an undetermined amount of time (the whole day?) That emotion is an awkward, retrospective "I guess I embarrassed myself and didn't even know it" feeling. A queasy, blushing sensation followed by a "grin and bear it, pretend it didnt happen" smile. We might call it "after-embarrassment".

The spark for this column has a political source - John McCain got angry at hispanic group wanting help on 'immigration reform':

After bucking his party on immigration, he had no sympathy for Hispanics who are dissatisfied with President Obama's pace on the issue. "'You people -- you people made your choice. You made your choice during the election,' " ... Having stuck his neck out in the past, McCain apparently is in no mood to do so again for an ethnic group he seems to view as ungrateful.

An apt analogy: "For his next trick, he will carry a scorpion across the water on his back and not get stung." So what is the word for this expression of bitter remorse, this "you chose your bed, now sleep in it" expression towards a group that is extended a kindness but which is repaid with ingraditude or worse? It's the bitter cup of charity-remorse.

The exhilerating feeling of having escaped a trainwreck through the accident of being late for that train. The common expression is: "There but for the grace of God go I." And we should thank Him for His grace on such matters. A literal act of God, the recent hailstorm, recently helped me in an unexpected way, metaphorically sending the right train into the station at a time when I thought I'd be left "holding the bag". Grace, gratitude and joy combined - "Gracitojoy!"

Speaking of bags, it is helpful that the stock market community has come up with the satifical "bag-holder" to describe the stockholders of companies who are headed for a 'dirt nap', aka bankruptcy, or are otherwise worth a lot less than before. I suspect there are millions of investors like me who have had a tough time looking at the broker statements for their account in recent times. The document dread and the financial fear factor probably needs a name. Finance-avoidance-syndrome. There is another syndrome, akin to the Bush-derangement-syndrome. It's sweeping that portion of America ready to throw tea bags at Congressmen and hold other Tea parties (See you all in downtown Austin, April 15th). That syndrome is PODS - Patriotic Obama Dissent Syndrome. PODS victims have a need to be the guy in the 1984 commercial to throw the Hammer at the Screen and "Stop Obama's Socialism" (or at least his $3.5 trillion budget busting spending spree).

What is that feeling of trepidation combined with distate when someone who of over-confident, over-competent and over-qualified threatens to 'get into your space' and best you at what you do. Is it competitive juices from the alpha-male gland (like that territorialism you see in Nature shows), or the envious fear of discontented incompetence? Let us call it "Uber-phobia". Whatever it is, I concluded when I started having such a feeling once that it was a vice. In the game of life we should seek to be the best we can be, work with the best whoever they are, and fear no competition. But just as "Hypocrisy is the homage vice pays to virtue", this mix of fear-greed-and-envy that we call uber-phobia is the homage incompetence pays to excellence. So what happens on the day when that super-duper-fast-rising-superstar -
or maybe just an aging, corrupt Senator who should have been gone long ago - stumbles and falls? You can drop the Uberphobia and Scheudenfraude is there waiting in the wings to fall back on.