B"H

 

Does anybody else feel overwhelmed with sadness and a feeling of hopelessness by what is going on in the world?

There is a German word for what I am referring to. It is called Weltschmerz. It is likened to depression, and many of the symptoms are like those of depression, but it is not depression exactly.

Much depression is selfish. Many depressed people are depressed because of the conditions of their own lives, which are not as they would have them. They rage in impotent frustration at not being able to have what they want and feel is their due.

 

Some depressed people are channeling the feelings about events that occurred in their lives that they cannot bear to feel into depression.  That kind of depression is really suppression.

Weltschmerz is the pain of the altruistic, the pain that some feel for the Human condition as a whole.

Weltschmerz is defined as world-weariness, but it can be so intensely painful that people have committed suicide from it.

Let us put the World Wars aside and consider what life was like up until recently. There were certainly upheavals in the world. There was baseless hatred, poverty, local war, family violence, substance abuse...One could be harmed by a myriad of unexpected causes. There were natural catastrophes as well.

But I do not remember catastrophes occurring with the frequency and intensity that they do today.

One barely has time to begin to regain one's bearings after some cataclysm has occurred before the next one strikes without warning.

Let's look at very recent history. There was the tsunami. There was Hurricane Katrina. During the three days that the settlements on the West Bank were being forcibly evacuated and demolished, which was a huge upheaval in Israel no matter what side of the political coin you are on that left thousands of families homeless and jobless; there was a plane crash, an earthquake and another plane crash. The Israeli army carried out the orders to evacuate the West Bank. They were instructed to use whatever force was necessary. They followed orders. No one believed that the army of Israel, which we thought was our army, a citizens' army, would turn on the citizenry. Overnight we realized that we are in a fascist state, that our soldiers are at the beck and call of corrupt politicians, that it is not an army to protect Israel. Our image of who we are as a nation dissolved into a slimy pool before our very eyes.

In my own personal life during that period I discovered that my relatives in the States had done things and were capable of things I never dreamed they could do. I realized that all vestiges of love for family had gone the way of making money. Nothing else matters for them and they will literally sell out their own mothers down the river for a buck. There's more that I prefer not to share with the public.

I, for one, am becoming disoriented by it all. All feelings of security are gone. Nothing makes sense anymore. I have lost interest in just about everything, except my most immediate family, because nothing seems to matter anymore.

I feel frightened to put one foot in front of the other and just go on as though everything is alright. I'm not sure there is going to be anything to tread upon.  The very ground is not assured us.

I know that I sound angry and bitter too much of the time. I'ts not so much anger and bitterness as grief and fear for the world.

My ability to reason has been compromised because so many things without rhyme or reason have occurred that my mind has been taken to the limits of where it can go and has been stretched beyond being able to snap back entirely.

I do not move from one news item to the next sensational story forgetting all that came before. For me 9/11 is not forgotten, the tsunami is not forgotten, the evacuation of Gush Katif is not forgotten...the affect of each upheaval is cumulative for me.  

I used to believe without a shadow of a doubt that there was a chance to save and heal the world. I was once such a passionately idealistic young person. Was that not me who left everything familiar in the US to live on kibbutz 23 years ago? What a cruel disappointment the kibbutz was. I will never forget the first General Meeting of the kibbutz I attended when they discussed the fact that some members were using their private bank accounts for extra personal luxuries not as a matter of concern for the welfare of the collective, but as a matter of course and too bad for those who did not have a private bank account. I thought my Hebrew was faulty and that I did not understand correctly. Daniel, who was not yet my husband at the time, assured me that I had understood perfectly.

I'm not sure of much of anything anymore except the love of my immediate family, but I know that I am grateful to have that.

A young woman of 23 years old asked if she would be bitter like me at 40. That question saddened me so. At her age I was so sure that I was strong enough to weather anything and I was positive that the world would never defeat my Spirit. But in large measure - it has, I cannot deny this. I was so strong, so strong. If this could happen to me it can happen to anyone.

What can I tell you, my dear young woman? What words of comfort can I give you honestly?

If you care about the world to the core of your being, as I did and still do, you won't be bitter, although it might look that way to others, but you will probably be filled with a good deal of grief – and sometimes grief mimics madness.

 

Another point that needs expressing is the fact that the engineers of our societies intentionally keep the concept of Weltschmerz from the public.

Anyone who feels depressed is made to feel that she or he is reacting only to the conditions of their own personal life or experiencing a "chemical imbalance".  Read any of the literature about depression.  None of it mentions the cruelty of society that we are exposed to. None of it mentions that we must witness others being ground into the dirt on an everyday basis.

Society does not take the blame for the fact that depression and feeling of hopeless and helplessness are so widespread.

We would better be able to deal with our own disappointments if we knew in our hearts that our societies were treating us fairly and doing their level best to make this world inhabitable for Human beings.

Most people find all kinds of ways of avoiding what I feel because it is so horrific, so abysmal, but the one thing I cannot do is live a lie in denial.

 

Doreen Ellen Bell-Dotan, Tzfat 

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