SCHADENFREUDE!!!

What is that feeling that we feel sometimes when something happens to an enemy?  For instance, your ‘friend’ who took away your boyfriend and disgraced and scandaled you, bragged about it; suddenly finds herself in the same situation when her ‘friend’ takes away the no good son of a bitch from her, and you hear the news for the first time that she is crying and ashamed and in pain as you were.  That feeling that you get to know that she who was so horrible, is feeling even a pinch or better of what you felt.  Jamaican people would say ‘sweet mi yuh si’ and don’t lie we’ve all felt it, even myself.  You don’t have to be an evil person with wicked thoughts or intentions to feel that sweet joy that is felt when someone who has hurt you has stumbled and fell.  The person who skips the line at the airport even while everyone is protesting and jumps in front to ask about his or her flight, only to have the representative listen to all they have said and when they have finished talking tell them ‘I cannot help you sir/miss, go to the back of the line and wait your turn’.  It is that feeling that we would be feeling now if Casey Anthony had received the correct sentencing, according to most.

There is a name for this feeling and I’ve used it quite often in some of my posts; and that name is schadenfreude.  This word literally means satisfaction or pleasure felt at someone else’s misfortune.  It can also be defined as malicious joy in the misfortunes of others.  Damage joy!!,   ‘What a fearful thing is it that language should have a word expressive of the pleasure which men feel at the calamities of others; for the existence of the word bears testimony to the existence of the thing’.  Written by Richard C. Trench on The Study of Words.  Schadenfreude is synonymous with gloating, sadism or glee and I would like to challenge the person who would say honestly that they have never had this feeling before. What say you Mother Theresa?, What say you Mahatma Ghandi?..Jesus a mussi ongle neva you, but stillll…… nah ah ongle you!! 

Years ago I had a couple of horrible nephews who lived beneath me in our family home.  These were sons to my older sister with whom I have no relationship.  These boys, who against my will, but because they needed somewhere to stay, came to live in the building with us; terrorized me with loud music at all hours of night and when I went to speak to them about it, they called me a bitch to my face.  It was a battle between them and I, and my sister, their mother seemed to find fun in it all because I was being tormented by her sons and there was nothing I could do about it according to them.  But ladies and gentlemen, never doubt the power of prayer and so, it kept on for almost a year until God saw it fit to deliver me.  The first thing happened was that all the other roommates moved out, then the pipes in the bathroom started to flood the whole apartment( OSUN is water that she is indeed), and also the whole family turned against them; then the lights were permanently turned off by the light company in the middle of summer with temperatures reaching over 100degrees every day, until they had to move quickly.  I sat outside the night of the exodus, the night that they moved, ashamed to even look at me, experiencing schadenfreude. With sweet joy at their shame and disgrace I Obara Meji can say explicitly that I was glad. I’m so happy that the Germans had a word for it!!.  There goes my story, come and tell me yours.

One Yam Cyaan tie inna bungle!!!…..ole time Jamican people proverb.