There’s a word for that.
It’s a beautiful springtime morning, and I’m walking to work beneath a clear blue sky. I gaze up toward the sky, not to revel in its beauty, but in the hopes that the cool air will dry the wetness welling up in my eyes. I take a deep breath and hope that I can make it through the day without my tears betraying me.
My life itself is one of great privilege. I have a rewarding job, a lovely home and a secure support system. But with a war raging on in Ukraine, the Supreme Court reverting over 50 years of human rights, and another racist hate crime, I have been struggling. I show up each day trying to be present with what is at hand, yet somehow I feel increasingly disconnected. My sensitivity to what is going on in the world pulls my thoughts away.
It was only until a perceptive colleague noticed and asked,
“Are you really okay?” and my only honest answer to that was,
“No.”
But it was so hard to describe. I felt guilty for feeling down when I had so much to be thankful for. But I was grateful for the safe space he created. As we dug into it, he knew the perfect word to describe how I was feeling: Weltschmerz.
Weltschmerz (/ˈveltˌSHmerts/) is a German word that literally means “world pain” (welt = world + schmerz = pain). It is an emotional state when someone is melancholic about all the suffering and injustice that exists in the world. It is a deeper and more desperate version of world-weariness.
I couldn’t believe a word existed — albeit not in English — that perfectly encapsulated the feeling I was experiencing.
Weltschmerz is also particularly poignant because it is incorporates a sense of the inadequacy of the world being linked to one’s own personal inadequacy. Through my own practice of self-compassion and metta meditation, I have been striving to accept my own imperfections by acknowledging that we are all imperfect. Yet that awareness now forces me to acknowledge that that exact fallible nature of humanity is reflected in the disappointing state of the world.
This all may seem pretty gloomy. Weltschmerz springs precisely from the fact that one knows there is so much more potential for the world. As a result, it leads to a profound sense of longing for a more beautiful world we know can exist, but does not.
But Weltschmerz can also be incredibly powerful. Weltschmerz is strongly tied to empathy, because it is an emotional response. It is distinct from both pessimism and depression in that pessimism is a logical conclusion that there is more bad than good in the world, and depression is a loss of feeling itself. To feel that deeply about the world means you care.
Weltschmerz has a history of both driving progressive reform and driving revolution. It is a force for change. The fact that you can envision a better world is what empowers you to advocate for that vision.
As my wise colleague said,
“Yes the weight of the world is on your shoulders, but it only gets better through people who care.”
For those prone to feeling Weltschmerz, it can be easy to feel disconnected from the every day and feel the weight of existential loneliness. For me, this can definitely be the case, but giving it language is powerful. To quote Ludwig Wittgenstein,
“The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.”
Knowing that there is language to describe this feeling reassures me that I am not alone in the experience.
And while it can feel that as one person I am too small to make a difference, I know there are still things that I can do. Each small step towards becoming the person I want to be and showing up for others is meaningful. There is comfort in knowing that this can be ultimately a force for change.
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” — Rumi
