Your floating despair, abbreviated
Tuesday October 28, 2008
Categories: Varia
A challenge suggested, sort of, by Alex Massie: Admit it. Certain things make you desperately unhappy, and you don't know why--the Sbarro at the mall, the taste of Jolly Ranchers in winter, the woman in the Buick station wagon you...
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About Crunchy Con
Rod Dreher is an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, and author of "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum), a nonfiction book about conservatives, most of them religious, whose faith and political convictions sometimes put them at odds with mainstream conservatives. The views expressed in this blog are his own.
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People who abandon what they know is true, and instead, get manipulated by social pressure.
I know of no greater tragedy in the human existence, because it ALWAYS results in loss to the one compromising beliefs.
Conservatives whose idea of conservatism is so amorphous and simultaneously self-serving that I can't figure why they call themselves conservatives in the first pace.
Kudos to Nightstalker and to Rod. I'm bummed out by those things, too. We find ourselves at the tail end of a roughly sixty year long experiment in mass media driven consumerism, and the end result appears to be a population mostly lacking in any sense of civic virtue, without which a republic cannot endure. Enjoy the Empire, everybody. I hear the circuses are terrific.
When my mentally-ill son tries to kick down the front door. It's a solid door - less solid than when he started this, but pretty sturdy yet - and I know he can't really get it down, but it makes me sad anyway. And I know that the police department won't take me seriously, because they know that getting involved in what they think of as a domestic dispute - even though he hasn't lived here for eight years - is a good way for a policeman to be hurt. So I'm alone with a madman.
Maybe this isn't abstract enough.
People believing things, for emotional reasons, that are demonstrably not true. You point out the facts to them. You prove your case and... they don't care and don't believe you. I almost always run into this when it is someone I care about making a decision I know is going to have negative consequences. My heart sinks.
Oh and Nightstalker, I know I'm on my own here. I get it. I understand your view of the community, which is, there isn't one. This may be the source of some of our personal misunderstandings.
I can't keep it one, and I resist that because I'm not interested in writing this guy's novel for him. So here's a few.
Scraggly, near-dead office plants. Goldfish in tiny bowls. Morbidly obese people eating in fast-food restaurants, or drinking those gigantic sodas. Homes filled with TVs and no books. Anything shot on video with bad lighting. Useless, brightly colored tchochkies with a tech company's logo on it. Greasy restaurant menus. Abortion clinic protesters -- especially their candles. Leftover restaurant food that is thrown away -- specifically, thinking of people growing the food and raising the animals, only to have it end up in the trash. When I see someone in a dead-end, low-skilled job, and I think of them as eager, optimistic children. Perky beer posters in hell-hole dives that cater to hardcore alcoholics. Decades-old calendars. The contrast between my childrens' innocence and what I know of the rest of the world.
The fact that I look forward to reading People Magazine.
MSNBC, and particularly the Olbermann show. It's not so much the politics, it's the intentional obnoxiousness and excrutiating repetitiveness of the show.
How does one make 489,000 digs at Fox News and/or Bill O'Reilly without getting tired of it? It makes me sad that the show is on TV; it makes me far sadder that there's a subset of Americans who actually watch it every night.
I am so unhappy when I watch certain commentators on TV – I’m thinking of Keith Olbermann in particular – who pretend to be great humanists, when, in fact, they don’t seem to like people much at all. The hipper-than-thou, scornful tone they take, the way they mock those they deem less enlightened, saddens me. The pleasure Olbermann takes in skewering his intellectual inferiors makes me sick inside, and causes me to question his motives. I think he believes his cause is righteous – and maybe it is – but I can’t get past his self-importance and borderline cruelty. He goes too far.
Wow, Chris... our mutual sorrow just crossed in cyberspace. I feel your pain :)
Sometimes it almost brings me to tears to watch old men shop alone at the grocery store. I think to myself, 'This poor old man's wife died and left him alone and he has no one left in the world. Look! He's buying TV dinners and canned meat because after many years of manual labor he doesn't know how to cook for himself. He's so alone and sad.'
Consequently, after a few strange looks from these said-"miserable" people, I remind myself that perhaps this man's flying solo for his own reasons, and perhaps, just maybe, he's really excited about his ready-to-eat TV dinner.
Old Susan,
That is terrible. I feel for you.
I sure agree with Roger about the half dead office plants. It's even worse when people actually put those same plants in their own homes. Its bad enough having to look at them in the fake sterile lighting of a partitioned office space. But to choose the same ones for your own home? Wierd.
Public clocks that don't keep time. It signals the things that we do that we don't keep up, don't even bother to care about, and the waste of money for no good reason. A simple thing, but it really depresses me. By the way, don't even try figuring out who could fix it, he or she has left the building.
What I have to get up to in the morning.
I could have written Chris's comment myself. My sister and her husband, who are otherwise intelligent and pleasant people (with whom I share a house) watch Olbermann together every weeknight. It's very depressing to come home after work and have that kind of screed be the first thing I hear when I walk in the door. What's worse is to see people I love enjoying it so much.
(They're away all this week, so the house is quiet. So I guess I'm getting a vacation, too.)
Bullies who manipulate and control people, especially the ones who use religion to do it. They don't just make me unhappy, they make me hateful.
Having to take a day off of work to sit *all freaking day* in attendance at a conference designed to "teach" you how to do what you've been doing exceedingly well for many years-- only with a creepy, New Age twist. (and then being told at the end that since you need to leave 30 minutes early to attend your child's parent teacher conference, you may have to do it all over again-- gar!)
(1) Snobbery
(2) Self-Righteousness
(3) Ingratitude
(3) Lack of honor
(4) Lack of humor
(5) Lack of humility
Oh, Roger... good list! I wanna list MY stuff. (Keith Olbermann's at the top, but there's more!)
Nursing homes... shopping at WalMart... my own house when I haven't cleaned in a while... dead flowers in a window box... brown grass in winter... magazines like "Details"... magazines like "In Touch" and "US Weekly"... the E! network... the idea of "Botox parties"... the popularity of plastic surgery, in general... teeth that are too white... pinky rings and gold chains on men... 45-year-old women who dress like teenagers... "Big Brother," "The Bachelor," and other reality TV shows... Oprah-isms passing as timeless wisdom... books like The Secret...
Suburbs
These sometimes giant human settlements offer a place to live, but no life. You can't walk to anything, and what's near enough to drive to in a short time isn't worth going to anyway. There may not be sidewalks. Nobody knows each other. Neighbors don't even see eachother for weeks at a time. The houses all have a sameness to them. The trite street names like "Wildwood" and "Oakchase" try to evoke country life when there is nothing even remotely rural about the setting. When people are home, they are in the "great room" in the back watching their big screen TV(s). Most people are forced to live there to have room to accommodate their families and three automobiles and to have access to a school that's at least safe, unlike the dismal schools in the older neighborhoods that have some architectural character. Finally, there is no incentive to invest in the upkeep and improvement of a house that won't appreciate for fifteen years or more when you can buy another new cardboard house--I'll take the "Stoneleigh Model," please--three miles away. That way you don't have to go $30 grand in the hole to replace the aging roof, carpet, and mechanicals and can take pleasure knowing you got out just in time. ("Wow, that neighborhood was about to go downhill fast. I will miss our tree, though; it was just starting to give good shade.")
Modern medicine. All of it. Doctor's offices with their pall of gloom, drugs that make you feel worse than the illness, clinical detachment, pill-pushing time-clock punching "health care." I can't relate at all to people who want more of this all paid for by the government, at which point all the charm of the DMV will be added to these concrete dens of antiseptic misery; I avoid doctors whenever possible and will gladly pay my own money for alternative medicine.
I understand where you're coming from , Katie A. I work in a supermarket, and you wouldn't believe how many elderly people comment that they're "cooking for themselves now". It makes me wonder where their family is, and how they're doing in this economic downturn.
Rod beat me to malls. Walking through a mall is like walking among the living dead. Everyone walks like zombies under sourceless light, slowly ambling forward, not really looking where they're going but not stopping to look at what they're looking at, either. They're not looking for anything, they're just gazing at stuff, miles of stuff, scented stuff, fancy stuff, cheap stuff, useless stuff, combinations of stuff, miles of it. And it's soul-killing, all this stuff, because it promises joy and happiness and delivers empty calories of Mall Food.
Looking at my eldest son, who is autistic, and knowing that all of the hopes and dreams I had for him have to be revised in light of his abilities. It is saddening to me to see this bright (in so many ways) child, and know that the challenges he faces now will be with him always and will have a major impact on his life. I hate the thought that someday I won't be around for him. Who will love him then?
Anything and everything having to do with Medicaid. (I work for a Medicaid provider.)
As Erin said, those of you who desire government run healthcare have no idea what you are hoping for, in spite of all the problems with the present system.
We spend all our time feeding the bureaucratic beast, and are so exhausted by the picayune pettiness of the system we don't have an ounce of energy left to care for the needy.
It is hell on earth, and those who designed it and perpetuate it--including me, I guess--are furthering a demonic system.
When my wife's younger sister lures her over to her house under the pretext of trying on bridesmaids' dresses and instead her parents and siblings and a spouse pull an intervention on her and try to break up our marriage because we try to live as Catholics and this fact infuriates them.
And I can't do anything about it.
Old Susan, I'm just damning soulless modern medicine; I live in a suburb myself.
So, according to Old Susan, only events and persons that affect us personally can qualify to make us unhappy?
Fall...elderly people dining alone in restaurants...certain parts of my hometown, Milwaukee, which I know all too well...and the end of the baseball season. (Thanks to the rain in Philly yesterday and today, it's going to last just a little bit longer this year : ).
Parallel to Nightstalker's first comment.
Nobody listens, nobody learns.
In any field you name ... education, medicine, voting methods, foreign policy, economics ... the solutions to most problems are well-known, and have been used and implemented in *some* places. Despite this, the *majority* of schools, hospitals, doctors, scientists, governments, continue to operate in ways that are brazenly and transparently wrong, often suicidal.
What drives me almost to despair, to the point of slitting my own throat while swallowing a mouthful of lasagna, is menopausal women popping up on my screen when I'm trying to read a certain DMN editorial writer's blog.
But I suppose a world without suffering is literally unimaginable, as someone recently remarked. At least I can fantasize about helping that other cute little blond get over her depression. She's too young to be depressed about menopause.
But I see that most of the responses here are serious. So I'll just add that I am tormented nearly to self-flagellation at the sight of Novus Ordo pew puppies chanting those heinously insipid hymns in thin reedy voices and the liturgical ladies sanctimoniously doing the "readings", pretending they have mastered the art of elocution. It's enough to make you join the Masons.
Also, people in cubicles with pictures of their progeny littering their work surface. It just proclaims, "if it weren't for you little bastards, I wouldn't have to be here."
Also, my wife quoting the latest "breaking news" from Fox. That gets me into such a slough of despond that someday I may throttle her just before that rabblerouser O'Reilly comes on.
Also, Barney Frank. Why can't the Good Lord put that fat, poxy, ugly, mumbling ignoramus out of his misery. It's not like he has a houseful of kids to support.
Otherwise, I'm fairly sanguine.
Perhaps "bureaucratic modern medicine" would be better; I'm agreeing with Lancelot Lamar. Is there no option between "dying in infancy" and the concrete misery dens, Old Susan? What happened to family doctors who even made house calls, occasionally?
Our current system doesn't do all that well with infant mortality, anyway; just something to keep in mind.
And Old Susan apparently finds her floating despair in the mere existence of the floating despair of others--a bit ironic.
Sorry to be my usual obnoxious self, but nobody has answered the question. Yes, you're listing things things that make you unhappy, but you also understand exactly why they make you unhappy, and it's probably for a reason that's one of your favorite talking points. (Gee, Rod doesn't like shopping malls? What a surprise! Why in the world could that be?)
The question posed is a much more interesting one: "Certain things make you desperately unhappy, and you don't know why." What are your equivalents of Antoine Roquentin's purple suspenders and broken chair seats?
To be contrarian: What makes me happy is walking our dogs to the dog park in the morning, greeting our neighbors over coffee, the morning papers and the pooper scooper as our dogs play, hearing the school kids across the street playing before school starts as the sun slips over the low clouds and the day gets underway. Now that's livin'!
Actually, Insane Kitten, you answered the question. I was writing my comment when yours hit. Good answers.
Counselor, I don't think the game of "If you don't like X that means you want Y" is particularly amusing.
Nothing about diphtheria prevention or treatment (including vaccines, which is a topic for another time) requires twenty to thirty sick (and quite likely contagious) strangers corralled into a waiting room with eight chairs, a rude office manager, an indifferent nurse, and a two-hour wait for a five-minute consultation with the physician's assistant who confirms that you do, in fact, have what you thought you did in the first place, at which point the medicine you've taken in the past may be grudgingly prescribed--or you may be told that it's been *replaced* by an *improved* version which will probably mean another two-hour wait for another five-minute visit next week for additional prescriptions to deal with the side effects of the first one.
Now, if you'd like to see it as an either-or situation: either we all die of diphtheria at six months of age or we have the situation I describe above, then that's fine. I happen to think we could do better without causing a resurgence of diphtheria, but then I tend to be an optimist about such things.
Waking up to single digit temperature outside and knowing I HAVE to leave the house. The 30 seconds it takes to just go outside to start the car to warm it up are unbearable, with the way the wind literally slices through my wool cut, as is the certainty that the next day won't be any warmer.
Almost as bad: temperatures so cold in the frozen and refrigerated sections of the grocery store that I long for my wool coat, even though the temps outside are pleasantly warm.
"Our current system doesn't do all that well with infant mortality, anyway; just something to keep in mind."
Our current system doesn't so well because we can't provide basic health care to the most needy. Those of us who advocate for universal health care worry as much about those who can't access health care at all as those who fret over not being able to get accupuncture or read dull magazines in the waiting room.
Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" contains a bit that reminds me of this thread.
People who repeatedly do things that are mean, nasty, angry, offensive, violent and vindictive and simultaneously claim that they are "good Christians."
Wow, Old Susan--since my family's enjoyment of Olbermann brings out the melancholy in me, that means I feel superior to them? No; I feel puzzled and sad, not superior. I suspect that my sister feels puzzled and sad about my refusal to support Senator Obama. There are chasms between us--perhaps between us all--that cannot be bridged, regardless of how much we love one another. If that isn't sad, I don't know what is.
Cellular telephones, and the fact that (A) people now assume you have one, and (B) feel they never have to plan ahead or stick to an agreed upon schedule because, hey, they can always just call you if something comes up (choose to flake out).
The question posed is a much more interesting one: "Certain things make you desperately unhappy, and you don't know why." What are your equivalents of Antoine Roquentin's purple suspenders and broken chair seats?
Good point. Grey, cold days make me misable, even if I am warm and toasty in a well lit room. It doesn't make any sense.
Being a substitute teacher at my old high school at thirty-eight and still not having any idea what I really want to do with my life. It also doesn't help that my wife will probably always be the main bread-winner in our home as well.
Seeing someone give a present to someone who doesn't like it. Sadness increases in proportion to the level of belief (or just desire) on the part of the first person that the second person would like it.
Cities. I hate being in Cities. And the Bigger the city the more I hate being in it. So Now I live in the 16th largest metropolitan area in the us. I can drive out of my city, through two more cities and arrive...in an even bigger city with never getting out of Urbanized terrain.
And I most likely will not be able to leave an urban environment for the rest of my life.
It's like being kept in a pen, with all the other livestock.
Of the 51 comments here, eight are by Old Susan, nearly all of them trashing others for being unhappy over things that she doesn't feel they ought to be unhappy about.
I have deleted almost all of Old Susan's posts on this thread. Old Susan, why don't you let others talk, for pity's sake, and quit playing the whole "oh, you awful elitists" card. This is supposed to be a quirky, eccentric list. Don't threadjack! I wish people would stick to the topic and talk about things that make them unhappy in ways they can't quite put their finger on.
In my case, I can't figure out why malls make me so unhappy. Like I said, it's not the idea of commerce that bugs me. It's something about the environment there. They make me sad, and not for ideological reasons, really.
People who block the aisles in parking lots waiting for someone to pull out so they can park 100 feet closer to the door. Go park at the end of the lot and _walk_ your lazy, fat ass to door. Do you some good.
The sight of a field or woods bulldozed over for a new freeway or development. I'm not against habitation but the sense of something permanently lost always draws out a sigh.
What makes me desperately unhappy, though I know EXACTLY why, is the knowledge that my fondest dreams are somebody else's nightmares.
All right, in the spirit of quirkiness: Old, now anonymous, family photographs in antique and secondhand stores sadden me. Especially the ones that are formal portraits, that are obviously meant to be remembered and cherished. The image is still there, but the memory is gone.
Enforced frivolity. Any events like Halloween, April Fools Day, children's birthday parties (which I hated even as a child), -- clowns, for gawds sake -- amusement parks, "funny dress-up days" at school -- The whole lot of them makes me so depressed I can barely stand it. At the same time, I love to laugh, and really like a lot of comedians. But situations in which you are supposed to be happy, with absolutely no carping allowed, almost terrify me. When you think about it, most comedians play off people's gripes, so they don't have the surrealism of so many of the things I mentioned. As I child I also hated many children's entertainers and shows, and especially "children's music." I did love Captain Kangaroo, though, and especially Mr. Rogers, because I think they downplayed the silliness aspect.
New Years Eve is especially hard. I never, ever understood why people drink and party and have noisemakers (an instrument of enforced frivolity if there ever was one). The whole "another year's gone" aspect makes me terribly sad.
MJ
People working cash registers with a wordless, aloof demeanor toward customers and an enthusiastic, gushing interest in one or more co-workers. You might say "That doesn't make you unhappy; it makes you annoyed." Well, this is not an either/or proposition -- it's both/and. After these exchanges, or lack thereof, I always walk away feeling anger and despair, wondering when and how our communities became nasty islands of minimalist human interaction. Or something like that. Ugh.
Meanness and spite; hatred; vitriolic words; mean-spiritedness and mean actions. People who harm children and animals especially. Hearing about such on the news makes me unhappy and despondent. Mean-spirited and thoughtless political discourse makes me unhappy.
1. Reading snap judgments about a person because of how they appeared on a couple of TV interviews, even when those snap judgments are contradicted by 16 years of resounding success in public office, and an 80% approval rating by the people who have had to live under her governance.
2. More generally, anytime I hear the statement "how can you expect to face ... if you cannot even face the media." As if being good at a press conference is indicative of any skills or courage. Applies to politicians, coaches, sports figures, etc.
3. Number 2 above, applied in reverse. E.g. movie stars imbued with expertise in some topic because they a good in front of a camera.
Airports. Airports depress me terribly. All those plastic plants, and glum passengers, and the irritated and superior people behind the counters, and the thwarted-looking security personnel. Somehow trusting God in an airport seems much harder than in other places.
Lonely food is very sad.
Maybe most depressing of all -- the washing up that you ought to have done the night of the party, which has lingered late into the next morning.
Television -- especially having to watch my wife watch television. The whole prime-time line up depresses me so damn bad, it's a wonder I can stand it. Sometimes I can't, and I have to leave the house.
Even worse is the late-night advertisements for car lots. Their fake "credit experts" with their cheap ties and smarmy, come-on-in-and-i'll-screw-you-too! attitudes.
Or maybe it is the ads for telephone service for welfare recipients - "you too can have a phone BUT you've got to be receiving AFDC."
Oh man. I'm really down now just thinking about it.
The increase in ATM fees. I understand why fees are charged. I understand that prices go up. But when I was charged three dollars this weekend, I was so sad (not angry) that my dinner with friends that night felt like a distraction.
More and more the exurbs upset me. Just the miles of pavement in Northern Virginia connecting one Panera bread to a tanning salon to a check cashing place to another tanning salon to a Panera bread to a Bank of America to a Dominos pizza.
Dominos pizza makes me sad.
(These are things that make me sad but I don't know why - as opposed to all the trouble in the world which makes me sad for obvious reasons)
Laundromats have always filled me with inexplicable sadness.
When I was a child, we lived near I-95; sometimes I awoke in the wee hours of the morning and could hear the far-off traffic and that always seemed sad as well.
Robots always seemed sad to me. I used to have a recurring dream that a giant robot was waiting at the end of my street, and when I got close to it I would be overwhelmed by a crushing sadness. (OK, I was kind of a weird kid to dream that!)
And a thing that makes me happy for no particular reason: Watching my dog run and play. It's impossible to be in a bad mood when your dog is happy.
Really, the magnum opus in this genre is Arnold Lobel's story for children, "Tearwater Tea," found in Owl At Home In this miniature work of genius, Owl sets out to make tearwater tea. He gets sadder and sadder until he is sobbing aloud and his teakettle is full of tears. These are the things that made him sad:
Chairs with broken legs.
Songs that cannot be sung, because the words have been forgotten.
Spoons that have fallen behind the stove and are never seen again.
Books that cannot be read, because some of the pages have been torn out.
Clocks that have stopped, with no one near to wind them up.
Mornings nobody saw because everybody was sleeping.
Mashed potatoes left on a plate, because no one wanted to eat them. And pencils that are too short to use.
Anyone who has small children and doesn't have this book should get it. Along with Lobel's other works, Mouse Soup and Mouse Tales, and, of course, all the Frog and Toad books.
To this list I'll add just one humble item of my own--freeways at night. The Pennsylvania Turnpike makes me very sad, but the New Jersey Turnpike is worse. It makes me both sad and afraid! I-35 West, in Texas, however, made me sadder than any highway ever. Just gazing at the lights going by made me want to die immediately and get it over with.
Okay, two items. The wastelands and the back sides of buildings seen from a moving train.
Oh dear. Must stop now, or I will talk about things that make me sad for a reason, and then there will be a tearwater tea party.
Oh, and I forgot about metal buildings. Metal buildings are the worst inventions ever.
I'm absolutely positive that the guy who invented them is doing serious time in Purgatory.
This is weird, and hard to explain, because it makes me sad and smug at the same time, but people being snotty about where I live makes me sad. Yes, it's extremely rural, yes, it's remote, but guess what? It's cheap to live, there's a real sense of community here, it's a fantastic place to raise kids, oh, and IT'S BEAUTIFUL.
I feel smug because I get it and they don't, but I also feel deeply sad that none of that stuff matters to them, they'd rather have the rat race, all that "convienent" sprawl, and a so-called higher standard of living (which I guess I take to mean more debt, a bigger/newer house, and bunch of other crap I don't want).
I don't want everyone to move here- that would ruin it. But I am troubled that my choices are viewed as being soooo counterculture- why has it become outside the norm to put personal relationships, physical and mental health, and family finances ahead of consumerism?
3 dollars to take money out of an atm??? I feel bad enough that I pay 20 euro cent.
I am deeply saddened by the fact that the world in which I grew up no longer exists. Case in point: Treasure Island Golf Course in Lubbock, Texas. This was a fine 18-hole, par-3 course that I played with my father many times as a boy. I can remember the layout of every hole. There was a driving range next door where I learned to swing a golf club.
Today, Treasure Island is long gone, replaced by a huge Walmart Supercenter. I can't help but think we have all been diminished by this trade... er, "progress." (It's not like there is a shortage of real estate in Lubbock, Texas, for goodness sake! They could've built that box-store anywhere.)
Christmas - church Christmas extravaganzas make me weep, not for joy. The day itself makes me feel lonely even when I'm with other people.
The relentless commercialization of Christmas saddens me no end. The message, reiterated again and again, is that to celebrate Christmas appropriately, one must spend, be acquisitive, and do one's duty to ensure that merchants have a profitable season. The true meaning of Christmas, the birth of Christ, is nowhere to be found in this mass-driven, secular, commercial culture. How depressing.
I'm relentlessly sad when I learn that things that I once thought were big are actually small. My elementary school, with its lunchroom, playground, and desks. My childhood home. The golf course where I learned to play. The hard drive of my second PC (40 MB). The church where I grew up. My childhood heroes. Politicians. Myself.
I'm getting sad just typing about it.
Well, okay, fluorescent lighting makes me really sad -- so sad that I can't stand to be under it for long. I think I read somewhere that there's a scientific reason for this. Maybe so. But it makes me think of a housewife standing in her living room, on shag carpet in 1973, still wearing curlers and her housecoat, smoking Vantages and ironing clothes while watching "Tattletales," and thinking oh man, that Bobby Van and Elaine Joyce, I wish my life was like theirs.
Communism. Fluorescent lights make me think of the brightest most cheerful slap-happy day that ever was in the history of communist Czechoslovakia.
Fluorescent lighting is like the taste that stays in your mouth when you eat a snack cake with creme filling from the vending machine. It's the hydrogenated vegetable oil of lighting.
Owl At Home is indeed a work of genius, like most of the Frog & Toad books.
I second the vote for amusement parks above. I believe if I ever went to Disneyland/world I would turn into a black fog of despair before being scattered by the wind. Amusement parks and fairs.
I think you're right, Rod, that there's been some scientific work indicating a genuine connection between fluorescent light and mood. I noticed it in myself many, many years ago and for a long time thought it was just me, but then kept hearing other people say the same thing. Great simile in your last line there.
People who prattle endlessly and loudly on cell phones on the train, the bus, or the street; foolish ninnies chattering on cell phones while driving; schlumps on the train in the morning who are completely fixated on their Blackberrys, reading their "important" e-mails for 30-40 minutes.
Oh, and one other: bosses who think "meetins'" are an important contribution to getting the work done.
The incredible shrinking of Bruce Springsteen from a towering, raw nerve of starving-hearted humanity -- listen to this classic recording all the way through: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuPYwN8jaWE&feature=related -- into a small shill of a partisan puppet. I blame the whole thing on Jon Landau and his idiot-ideologue's reading list. But Bruce had to willingly do the homework his intellectual mentor assigned him. The result is enough to make a grown fan cry.
Several years ago, just after Christmas, a homeless man was found frozen to death in the alleyway between two buildings near my job, where he’d apparently hoped to find shelter from the freezing wind. Just thinking about that broke my heart. The next year, someone gave me a couple of new Christmas CDs, and ‘Rudy’ by the Be Good Tanyas was on it. That song so strongly reminded me of that poor frozen man that I cannot listen to it without crying. Even now, after three Christmases have passed. I listen to ‘Rudy’, and I just cry and cry.
(the URL I've added goes to a site that plays the song)
I have to add one more thing... And because Redneck reminded me. I hate cities. Occaisionally I'm in one for more than a day or two, and it starts to wear on me. By day three or four, I am all but physically ill, just frantic to get out of the noise, mess, mentality, impersonality, and constant rush of the city.
I cannot recall a single time when I did not break every speed limit and even prudent driving leaving the city, I so desperately wanted to get away.
It's a lot easier to think here in the peace and quiet. To admire the hawks and eagles on the power lines, the deer, coyotes and waterfowl... The mind is renewed and soul healed...
Young, unwed mothers with lousy boyfriends, no money and few prospects - especially when it looks like it's their first child and they still retain an aura of hope and joy.
When I think of the sad, grinding future that probably awaits them. . . .
_______________________
That said,
Old Susan:
The difficulty in situations like yours is this: when and if you call the cops, they can't really be sure what your son's legal interest in the property might be, and consequently, they aren't really able to intervene to remove him based solely on your word. Bearing that in mind, it may be possible to get something called a "writ of possession" from your local JP - it's the kind of thing that enables a property owner to prove their right to "possess" a property and physically exclude somebody from the premises under force of law. In Texas, the "superior right" usually arises under the terms of a breached lease agreement, but it can also derive from other instruments, including a deed to the property in your name. (I myself have obtained a writ of possession under somewhat similar circumstances.) At the very least, it would declare your right to the sole possession of the property over his, and it's the kind of thing that a cop would recognize and respect - since it authorizes actual PHYSICAL removal of that person at the behest of the owner (you). They aren't very expensive, just the filing fee for the original action. In Texas, that's a forcible entry and detainer action which costs about $90.00, a quick hearing, a judgment, a short wait (5 days or so), and then about $200.00 for the writ, which the sheriff/constable can then execute - and it's the kind of thing that people can file themselves. (Yours would be a bit more complicated since it's somewhat different from the usual Landlord/tenant dispute, but not prohibitively so as the same principle applies in both cases). If the person is not on the premises when it's time to execute the writ, you can simply tell them (the sheriff/constable)that. They don't actually have to execute the writ in order for it to be valid - as long as the person and all his possessions are gone from the premises when the time comes.
Something to consider, anyway.
. . . and animals that have been hit by cars. :(
Old Susan:
and btw - allowing the person to keep their possessions on the premises after obtaing the writ will negate its effect (so don't do it).
Modern country music makes me unhappy. People with no real emotional connection to the classic forms of country have highjacked it with ridiculous songs about their $30,000 pick-up trucks and general suburban angst. The emotional depth is about one inch. Sure, there were silly country songs back in the old days, but now with few exceptions the songs are either silly or overwrought and vapidly emotional. And no keyboards or synthesizers belong in country music. They occupy the same tonal space as a pedal steel, a much more expressive instrument, and just drown it out.
Fortunately, the real stuff still lives -- and since it's not on the radio, I don't have to listen to crappy radio commercials either, which is another thing that makes me unhappy.
Does anyone listen to something like Mozart's Requiem and just get sad that our civilization is now incapable of producing anyone who can do anything as well as Mozart did his thing?
Loss
I just lost a close friend. He had a hernia surgery. It was supposed to be normal. I planned on emailing him about the election. I planned on stopping by work to see him on the way to my own job. I planned on having him be a part of my life. He became a friend on our first day of working together. I became his best man only three months later. Today I called in sick from work because of him. I was sick. I slept in until noon. Then I awoke and later drove just to drive. Even as I drove, I thought of campaign signs that I would tell him about. This reminds me of all too many other losses I've gone through over the years. I'm running out of fingers and toes. Even my pastor said that I've gone through more than the average loss for someone my age (43).
I'm Augustinian in my anthropology, so the variety of responses you've gotten does not surprise me. But for me, personal loss is the most aching reality that hits home. Too many, too early.
Old Susan:
. . And of course, if he ever becomes physically violent, you can get a protective order - but that's a bit more complicated (and serious).
Oh, Michael, I'm glad you said that.
I spent my twentieth birthday visiting my (now deceased) grandmother in the DC area. I wanted a Walkman for my birthday, and got it and one of my favorite tapes to play in it, so as we drove around sightseeing in DC I had Mozart's Requiem blasting in my ears; pretty surreal to see congresspeople hurrying into the Capitol while the loud and frightening "Dies Irae" is playing. The "Lacrimosa" part of that Mass is still one of the saddest things in the world to me--yet it's not an empty sorrow.
As to what you said: I have met a twenty-year-old young man at our church, who was home from college over the summer. He is a phenomenally talented musician who is studying music as an undergrad and plans to go on for further study; one of his areas of interest is liturgical music, and I believe he has already composed some Mass settings. We attended his summer recital--piano--and while all of it was quite impressive, I was especially impressed by the two original pieces he played. One short piece in particular is hauntingly beautiful; there are some echoes of Beethoven's influence and just a touch of more modern composers (I think Debussy, perhaps), but the piece was not even remotely a copy--it has a lovely lyrical quality, plenty of energy without being forced, and a depth that few composers twice his age could achieve with such seeming ease.
He is devoutly Catholic; the piece is called "Stella Maris" after the chapel at St. John's where he began writing it.
So whatever else you might be sad about, don't be sad that we've stopped being capable of producing great art. I think many types of art, including music, took a bit of a detour to "play" with modernity, as did the artists responsible for them. But this young generation seems to be much less willing to throw out everything that came before, and instead seems to want to go back, rediscover it all, and then build on it--which is how it should be.
Self-storage: This summer we moved out of our house in the US. After three years in China, it was obvious that my husband was still nowhere near having a job in America. We distributed, donated, and disposed of as much as we could, but we still over-stuffed a 10X15 space. There we saw other families. Some of them were storing furniture in worse condition than those we had tossed. What circumstances caused them to have to store broken tables and chipped-up beds? We at least had employment and a place to live, though in China. I cried as we secured the lock.
Irenicum, I'm sorry for your loss.
I saw a hastily painted sign in a mini-van window last June. "Congratulations to the new graduite".
The misspelling made me sad and the fact that it looked like an afterthought.
Erin,
Good to hear. I love the liturgical music of Nicholas Wilton, a contemporary English composer. And I went to Mass this weekend in Norwalk CT, and the music director there has assembled a lovely schola - and even composes.
The Lacrimosa is amazing. I sang it several times in my high school chorus and the New York State chorus. You never forget it. What most impressed me about it is this: the lines are relatively easy to sing - very natural. I find the Kyrie and the Agnus Dei to be the most impressive.
I have lots of hope for the Catholic Church in this country as the priests who were ordained during the 80s and 90s begins to grow up and take over from the bishops who were ordained in the 50s,60s, and 70s.
The thought of a particular woman I no longer know.
The fact that so many people see something completely opposite as do so many other people.
Oh, and the AMC Pacer.
It's hard to come up with an answer pertaining to things for which I don't know why they make me sad; most things I do know why. And Rod, surely you realize that malls and fluorescent lighting are anti-human, anti-crunchy to the core, right?
So anyway, things I hate:
(1) Modernity. I don't mean modern medicine, or any of the things that truly make our lives better. I mean the idea of the Individual as an autonomous entity, captain of his or her own fate and soul, dependent on no one, connected to no one. The results have been disastrous for western culture: destruction of the family, the overthrow of faith, etc.
(2) Suburbs. I cannot adapt, and I'm dying inside.
(3) A**holes in suburbs.
(4) Abortion.
Got my family, though, our little platoon contra mundum.
1) Just being at the mall...
2) ...seeing beatiful young people with steel sticking out of their faces...
3) ...and then seeing the poor old guy standing outside the Body Shop holding his wifes purse.
If I were on of our resident agnostics (I won't mention which one), I would scream, "How could a just god allow such evil!?!?"
Sigalins: "The wastelands and the back sides of buildings seen from a moving train. "
Now, I'm the opposite here. I love the quirkiness of what there is to see - odd garden furniture, graveyards, etc. I love the vegetation of wastelands - all that buddleia - I can almost see the butterflies. I love railway architecture.
I have a long list, but it overlaps with many others here, so maybe it's a bit boring after 90+ posts:
- Airports
_ Modern shopping centres
- Casual fashion - Suits and ties are OK, jeans and T-shirts are OK, it's the in-between that makes me unhappy
- Tattoos
- Piercings
- Any savoury snacks other than crisps/chips
- Curricula vitae
- Estate agents' adverts
- Most cities - The only possible exceptions I would make are really big ones (London, New York, etc.), which are exciting for a few days, and really old ones, or maybe just Ghent.
- New houses
- Churches and pubs surrounded by car parks - i.e. anti-community community centres
- Sectional shaving (moustaches, goatees, etc.) - Anything other than being clean-shaven or having a patriarchal beard suggests that the person spends too much time on his appearance
- Bars, as opposed to pubs
- Hearing thuggish young men using sociological jargon - "I'm not ethnocenric or anything, but I got really alienated, so I punched him".
People who say, "I'm doing good," instead of "I'm doing well."
People who say "culinary" like kuhl-i-nar-ee instead of kyoo-li-nar-ee. Read a damn dictionary and see the primary pronunciation.
People who say that gays wanting to get married is the reason marriage is threatened and not divorce or adultery.
People who wear socks with sandals.
People who call me at work and only ask for the balance in their account. And then don't even say goodbye, they just hang up as though I'm not even a real person.
Kids who talk back to their parents and then don't get backhanded. When I was a kid, if I said so much as "no" to my mom I would get my teeth handed to me.
People who get more enthusiastically into what's sad and what's wrong with the world then what possibilities and wonderful things exist.
Seriously, if I have learned something over the last 44 years of my life, it is that gratitude is not just an "attitude", it is a discipline.
P.S. Old Susan, prayers for you and your son.
Handmade items in second-hand shops. I'm a pretty even-keel person, but that makes me so ovewhelmingly sad that I finally decided to stop secondhand shopping, unless I'm with distractingly cheerful friends or family.
Also, having lived much of my life within a few miles of I-70 (although at very differnet points along it) I'm with Salamnder on the "sound of distant interstates" thing.
Hey, Jim H, I like your attitude. In fact, I'm grateful for it. ; ) Maybe we should have another thread about things that make us inexplicably happy. Research has shown that it takes five good encounters with another person to make up for one bad one in a relationship. I suspect the same thing is true in one's thoughts. You need to notice and dwell lovingly on five things that make you feel happy and grateful to make up for every time you pay attention to something that makes you sad. Otherwise you'll be sad an awful lot. It seems worth a try, anyway.
Susan, my prayers and love to you and your son as well. Though I hesitate to say that, because I think that if prayers and love could solve this problem, you'd have solved it by now. I'm sure your prayers and love have been storming heaven for years.
When a person says (with pride) "I don't like to read." Stray animals. Getting the urge to call my Mom, knowing I can never do that again. People who won't be friends with someone who thinks different from them politically. A beautiful old house, that is falling apart from neglect...or just as terrible, badly cut up into apartments.
For some unknown reason, Wal-Mart really depresses me. Sadness hits first in the parking lot, then even more as I walk into the open maw of the entrance. Cheap, useless imported things stuffed in the aisles, falling off the shelves. Zombified people moving oh so slowly. Indifferent cashiers. I don't know; other big boxes aren't as bad. Just something about Wal-Mart.
Also, ditto on fluorescent lighting.
Apostrophe misuse.
"We're running too far into the weeds" from news pundits.
24 News Networks and their attempts to fill all 24 hours simply by reiterating the same news for each respective host's show.
"Poison in the groundwater! Details at 11".
People who brake when the freeway bends.
People who queue up miles before their freeway exit when the lanes on either side of them are empty until that exit.
People using "indifferent" and "ambivalent" interchangably.
People, US Weekly, In Style, Entertainment Tonight, Extra, Access Hollywood, etc.
Oprah on every cover of her own damn magazine.
The total dearth of edgy humor from conservatives and Christians in culture.
Very interesting thread. Like Irenaeus, I can't really think of things that depress me inexplicably - usually I either know the reason or can figure it out if I give my mind to it. One thing that really depresses me is all the couples who have decided either not to have any children or to have only one. Not talking about those who are unable to have kids but those who are able and choose not to. They're missing out on so much.
Abandoned military bases, factories, and schools. These forgotten places are haunted by the ghosts of priorities past.
Walmart- that's a good one, midtown. Can't stand to be in one any longer than I have to. Makes my skin crawl.
S' funny-- rombald mentioned airports as something that make him sad, which I understand, but those are places that make me inexplicably happy! Maybe it's the anticipation of going somewhere, or greeting a loved one, I'm not sure, but I just love airports-- the busy-ness, the overpriced little shops and foodstands, everything! Weird, huh?
I just read through all of these posts and now I'm all depressed. Thanks a lot.
The lack of justice for all, the lack of liberty and the pursuit of happiness for some citizens, the lack of equal treatment before the law, the crapping on the full faith and credit clause for some citizens. IOW, the usual.
The last time I went to a major sporting event was very depressing. It was a rare opportunity with free, good seats, but I couldn't shake a deep, uneasy feeling the whole time. Maybe it was the extent of the resources wasted to pull off something so big, or perhaps it was the exaggerated, false solidarity over something so trivial as sport. At first I tried to focus on the positives, but things turned permanently sour once I realized I would have to cough up $45 for anything close to a beer buzz.
Having lunch with my old boyfriend. I love my family, he's married, I'm glad we aren't together and I know clearly why. But . . . I spend the afternoon being unhappy after seeing him casually.
Does the fact that we're making Another John sad mean our "sad things" aren't as irrational and idiosyncratic as we thought?
I get profoundly sad and unnerved whenever I am visiting the local cluster of big box stores near my house. One big box store / outlet mall is often enough to give me the creepy crawlies, but the cluster of close to a hundred of them that I live near leaves me feeling...well, hard to describe. It's like I'm surrounded by life that's not really alive, like I've entered a colourful deadzone. To my eyes, looking at a WalMart Supercenter or an outlet mall is like looking at a brightly made-up corpse.
I've always been very susceptible to melodies. Certain ones can still make me cry -- "Tammy" will make me weep if I think about it for a few seconds, or the theme song to "Lassie." But I understand why -- those are very wistful melodies. But some I don't understand. When I was very young, hearing the song "Good Night Ladies" would make me cry uncontrollably. I don't get it. They even say, "merrily we roll along," so the ladies are happy to go home. But there must be some forced hilarity that even the ladies can't acknowledge that I was attuned to.
What makes me sad?
Seeing the kids going away to college, and knowing that makes yet another year farther away from having that fresh start to life for me. The kids who get signed into my daughter's day care minutes after they open at 6:30am and get signed out after 5pm. Being a few years shy of 40 and feeling like I'm this close to being trapped in spending my life in a stultifying job, and not knowing how to change that. Wishing I had some kind of magic way to feel closer to God. Watching a local mom-and-pop business fail. My sister's refusal to see my grandmother.
Whem my wife is unhappy, I am unhappy. Not that she does anything to make me unhappy. It just makes me unhappy, especially when I am the cause of the unhappiness.
Watching most of my friends in the Central African country I lived for several years slowly get crushed by a massively injust and corrupt system, and knowing that there is hardly anything I or they can do about it.
Watching family members continue ugly, decade-long battles by enlisting children.
Finding relics of mid-20th century Catholic culture, whether lying in wallets of dead relatives sold off at tag sales or stuck in missals at thrift stores.
Not being able to have children naturally, and the waiting that comes with the glacial pace of the adoption process.
He said I'll love you 'til I die
She told him you'll forget in time
As the years went slowly by
She still preyed upon his mind
He kept her picture on his wall
Went half crazy now and then
He still loved her through it all
Hoping she'd come back again
Kept some letters by his bed
Dated 1962
He had underlined in red
Every single I love you
I went to see him just today
Oh but I didn't see no tears
All dressed up to go away
First time I'd seen him smile in years
(Chorus)
He stopped loving her today
They placed a wreath upon his door
And soon they'll carry him away
He stopped loving her today
The smell of diesel exhaust in a busy city.
The looks people have on their faces when on crowded mass transit. Something tells me that these looks are usually honest, because people are alone and withdrawn and are not at the office yet and thus don't yet have to maintain pretenses. And thats when so many people look... preoccuppied, mildly anxious, tired, blank.
As for something I don't understand - pity or understanding from my family. Whenever something really bad happens to me (job loss, sickness, etc.) I dread telling my family about it. Recently me and my girlfriend split up, and it was a pretty serious relationship. I dreaded telling my parents and dealing with the resulting outpouring of (sometimes awkward) sympathy.
I should think its heart-warming, or at least cute, but it just makes me sad.
I_Like_Dragyn wrote:
"People who say, "I'm doing good," instead of "I'm doing well."
People who say "culinary" like kuhl-i-nar-ee instead of kyoo-li-nar-ee. Read a damn dictionary and see the primary pronunciation.
People who say that gays wanting to get married is the reason marriage is threatened and not divorce or adultery.
People who wear socks with sandals.
People who call me at work and only ask for the balance in their account. And then don't even say goodbye, they just hang up as though I'm not even a real person.
Kids who talk back to their parents and then don't get backhanded. When I was a kid, if I said so much as "no" to my mom I would get my teeth handed to me."
Wow, I'am pleasantly surprised to say I agree wholeheartedly with one exception: People in have different ways of pro-nounce-ee-ateing. Lighten up Francis! ;-)
Like Dennis and Irenaeus, my problem is that I can figure out why certain things make me sad.
And I actually like, and find a kind of contentment, in a lot of things that make some people sad: the lonely people in Hopper's paintings, especially in urban settings; old sidewalks and concrete steps in the tired parts of US cities; and every poignant, autumnal melody in Brahms.
I am sad because we're in the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression and I just found out that I'm losing my job on Nov. 15th.
I don't give a damn how people pronounce things.
Scurvy: And I actually like, and find a kind of contentment, in a lot of things that make some people sad: the lonely people in Hopper's paintings, especially in urban settings; old sidewalks and concrete steps in the tired parts of US cities; and every poignant, autumnal melody in Brahms.
I find that certain melancholic things -- rainy days, for example -- make me nearly euphoric. As long as they're properly lit!
Mccxxiii, I'm sorry about your job.
Max,
I know and i is something that I am working on. I used to go off on people when they said it (I've had a tendency to be a little bit arrogant. But now I'm better. Another thing that I do - even though I've lived in the gulf coast my entire life, I can't bring myself to say "coke" when referring to beverages. I have to say "soda". My family has always thought I was strange.
Floating despair? Desperately unhappy?
I will admit that I just could not bear to read 120 whiney lists of things that were just mildly annoying, so I just scrolled fast by them after a while.
But Rod, gee whiz, if malls annoy you, don't go. I don't, and it hasn't limited my life noticeably. If I need something, I can figure out how to get it, and a lot of the time I manage to figure out how to make do without it anyway. Some people find suburbs pleasant and supportive places to live. If you don't, move.
In truth, we are probably among the luckiest, happiest people on earth. (One measure of our comfortable prosperity is the fact that we can to afford an computer and an internet connection).
People like Old Susan with the mentally ill so who threatens her and the person who just lost his job have a reason to be unhappy, but even so they have a positive attitude. Most of the rest are just listing mild annoyances, not unhappiness.
I’m late replying to this one (long time lurker, rare poster) and for the most part, I’m a glass half full, look on the bright side type of guy but some things make me unhappy/sad/angry about the world around me. Some of them have been listed above but here are a few of my own:
An ever-present feeling of selfishness in (UK) society. From double-parking on narrow roads and dropping litter upwards, many people seem to have forgotten that they live in a society.
Cruelty to animals. Apart from causing unnecessary suffering to animals what on earth must be going on in their minds that they feel it is acceptable to hurt an innocent animal for their own twisted reasons?
Revelling in anti-intellectualism – many people here in the UK have no desire to learn more about the world, to improve and widen their understanding of things around them. They are happy to wallow in Saturday night television, cheap tabloids, football, cheap beer and moronic radio DJs.
A lack of empathy – I feel that people have forgotten how to put themselves in the position of others. If it’s OK for them it’s OK fullstop, consequences for other people don’t matter. Probably linked to point 1.
On that positive note I shall return to my green tea and lurking!
Rgds
Peter
I loved reading this list. Except that I got a longing sadness out the sight of the words of some people who enjoy the experience of carrying such a cancerous chip on their shoulder, and who expend their very real ability with words to expatiate on it.
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