Monday 27 February 2012

Survival Words of the Day - Schadenfreude & Rationalisierung....

February 27, 2012

The Germans have given some great things to the world. BMW cars. Sausages. Soul describing compound words. And, er, anyway.

Schadenfreude is our parachute, our bail out, our lifeboat. Joy in adversity of others. My life isn't a complete mess because others are worse off.

Hey I got a month to hang out looking for internal assignments. That other guy, he joined with me and was strip searched on the way out.

Things could have been worse. Our company could have folded. It happened to this person I know and now he's busking with his daughter's xylophone sticks and a couple of upside down marmite bottles.

Poor whatshisface. At least I'm not whatshername. I haven't lost a knighthood. Yep, let's go out and celebrate. House wine please.

The other crutch is justification through rationalisation. Rationalisierung. The top 5 regrets of the dying (http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying) is pinned up on my refrigerator, my study, my computer and mirror. I even carry a laminated clipping around with me in my wallet, now that there's a little more space there.

The thing is, our most precious commodity is Time. And it is running out with a relentless, precise, German (aha) certainty.

And it's the one we treat the most casually and callously. An hour on the tube, zoned out. A meeting with two words spoken while pressing blackberry keys under the table. Listening into a results update while surfing the net (and trying not to get arrested by the IT police). Got to win it back, and I have.

Yes, I am gliding happily along the twin rails of Schadenfreude & Rationalisierung. There is no other option to survival.

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