In German, Weltschmerz-literally ā€œworld-painā€-is that melancholic realization that the world, with all its flaws, suffering, and brokenness, falls painfully short of how we feel it should be. Itā€™s not just personal sadness, itā€™s more like an intellectual reckoning with the gap between reality and its potential beauty. Right now, the worldā€™s on fire (literally and figuratively), and Weltschmerz captures the vibe perfectly. Think of it as a big, collective sigh-beautifully sad, hopelessly existential, but also oddly comforting, like listening to a Lana Del Rey song. Or the 2012 tumblr era. When I was a teenager, Iā€™d feel down out of nowhere-like a weird, weighty sadness without a clear cause. My mom would look at me and say, ā€œAhhh, Weltschmerz,ā€ like it explained everything. And honestly? It kind of did. It wasnā€™t about a bad grade or drama with friends. It was just there, this intangible ache tied to something bigger, like feeling the weight of the world without knowing why. the twist is: Weltschmerz, rooted in Romanticism, isnā€™t entirely hopeless. Yeah, it aches, but itā€™s the kind of ache that inspires. Great art, big ideas, it all comes from that mix of sadness and longing for something better. So yeah, Weltschmerz might be beautifully tragic, but itā€™s also a quiet relief, like sighing out everything heavy and feeling a little more connected, a little more human!

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wow woww. this is beautifully explained. and itā€™s kinda comforting to know that so many people must have experienced this exact feeling that thereā€™s even a word for it ā€¦
Jan 13, 2025

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thereā€™s something strange about the headAche that follows a good cry. it lingers. an aching reminder that the tEars were real. that the sadness was deep. the thrObbing in my temPles feels like a weight. but also a strange clarity. when everything seems blurred and raw. the mind is sharp in a way itā€™s neVer been before. itā€™s as though the heart and tHe mind have found a rhythm together. a rhythm that only comes with the quiet aftermath of pain. itā€™s during this vulnerability - when tHe world feels heavy and silent that creativity flows best. when sadness wears away the surface - the soul has space to create without barriers. thereā€™s honesty in it, a kind of bruTal truth that can only emerge from the deepest emotions. the ache. thouGh painful. clears the path for something new to emErge. itā€™s almost as if the sorrow is the soil for growth, and from it, idEas sprout and twist. but i kNow that this isnā€™t forever. the headache will fade, and with it, the weight of tears. what once felt overWhelming will soften. moments are just the prelude to something better. the clouds will break. there will be space for the light to return.
Feb 22, 2025
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Iā€™ve always had this fascination to emotion as a concept. Of course because everyone feels it every day of their life, but more of how encapsulating it can be. I watch films and hear stories and listen to songs and I come to find myself jealous? Jealous of how pure and raw others experiences are. Why canā€™t I feel the agony of losing someone, why canā€™t I feel the devastation of a death, why canā€™t I lose a friend. It sounds so starkly idiotic because why would anyone want to feel such devastating things, and Iā€™ve asked myself this a lot, part of me thinks itā€™ll draw more stories to tell in my life, but I think the truth of the matter is that to live is to feel. And I really want to live my life for all that it can bring me. I write all this not to distract myself from the reality that I have in fact felt such great pain in my life. However, I always lust for more. This also feels like such a blatant explanation for my love of movies, I always feel so drawn into my love for film for itā€™s ability to snatch my mind away from my life and place it into anotherā€™s. My favourite films are those that have made me cry, because as painful as it is I just canā€™t help but love it. My favourite film is common knowledge but Call Me by Your Name draws me into such a chokehold each time I watch it because of the devastation I feel upon every watch. I never rewatch films but with it I canā€™t help it, because it always and forever will make me catatonic. Anyways, I am leaving my point, my point is I am currently in a swarm of emotions from my own life and it is everything I have prayed and asked for while also not being it at all. I feel such an irresistible compulsion to break down and cry, and then I do, but I find myself listening to music and reading texts that only encourage and swell the emotional climax of these tears. In moments where I find myself urged to move on for the betterment of my day, all I can help but think about is someone I care so deeply for moving away. However, is it immature to want to move on? Why must I shun myself from these emotions. After all despite how painful it is, I find myself searching for this pain again and again. Because to yearn is to be in pain, and to be in pain is to feel, and to feel is to live.
Mar 3, 2025
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I don't like pain. I've spent much of my life trying to avoid pain, reduce pain, mitigate pain. Many hours have been wasted on efforts to distract, ignore, escape, and numb. But lately I'm accepting that it can't be avoided. Pain will always be with meā€”usā€”in one form or another. Loss, grief, wounds from family, betrayal by friends, sickness, misunderstanding, the whole world one great glorious minefield for pain. And pain is also often an indicator, a teacher, a directional arrow. (Not always. Sometimes it is a terrible guide.) But I ignore its lessons at my peril! So. How then do I live so as not to be crushed? Perhaps: us. We're going to hurt, so let us hurt in community. Not to swim in the muck of self-pity, wallowing as perpetual victims unable to escape the morass of circumstance, but as co-sufferers whose companionship gives hope. We lament together and hurt together and its really awful but then I dry your tears and you dry mine and there's strength in your eyes and in my words and we dust off and link arms and stumble forward.
Dec 15, 2024

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