Stop being a ‘weltschmerz’ !

Pic from Pexabay

By Anis Albasha

Heal the World
Make It A Better Place
For You And For Me
And The Entire Human Race
There Are People Dying
If You Care Enough
For The Living
Make A Better Place
For You And For Me
**

We are the world,
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So, let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me

When I was young, I used to listen to such lyrics which triggered a burst of emotions inside me. At that time, like many other teenagers in my age, I was full of enthusiasm which was decorated with a number of promising imaginations about the future. I believed that it was my generation that could change the world and make it to a better place. Only when I grow up, I found out how foolish I was when I thought that I could change the world just because I have the passion within me.

At the beginning, I was one of those who look at this issue as a sacred duty that needs to be done no matter what. Inside me was that urgent desire to lessen the suffering for humans, animals and even plants. I do not know whether it was the atmosphere and the circumstances in which I grew up or the books I used to read, but I used to think positively and optimistically. I had the impression that one day everything would be reformed and changed to the best. As the American football coach Lou Holtz once said, “Nothing is impossible in this world if you just put your mind to it and maintain a positive attitude”. And I had both, the determination and the positive attitude. I am not sure of that, but I think that was the case for many of my own generation, at least in the society where I lived.

As I grew older, I started to look at this issue from a different perspective. I began to realize that the world around me was more complicated than I what I thought. The first interaction that shook my confidence encountered me right after the death of my father. At that critical period, I had to deal with the judicial system in my country for the first time in my life. To be honest, even at that time when I was a teenager, I didn’t have a full promising perception about the situations in an underdeveloped country like Yemen. However, I never expected the matter to be that bad. A respectable, independent and trust worthy judicial system is something crucial in any civilian society.  It is ‘the mechanism that upholds the rule of law’.  Unfortunately, the judicial system we have in Yemen was and still is faulty and corrupt. The experience I got by dealing with that system has badly affected me and diminished my hopes.

The second incident happened when I established my first private business. Full of aspirations and hopes, and after strenuous battles with the corrupt judicial system, I started a small business in my city. I wanted that business to thrive and I was dreaming of making it a very successful one. I started to regain my confidence and to forget about my bitter experience with the judicial system and with other parties. Sadly enough, after a short period of success, the second clash with the corrupt state institutions took place. At that time, I was still full of unbridled enthusiasm and I didn’t want to give up easily. Again, I thought that nothing would be impossible to a willing heart and to a determined mind. Napoleon Bonaparte believed that ‘impossible’ is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools. I wasn’t a fool. I was able to establish an independent business while I was 20 years old. So I tried to fight back but the world was bigger and stronger than me so I was defeated in the end. And again, I was wrong and my confidence was badly shaken this time.  

Later, during the different experiences I have gone through throughout various stages of my life, I came to realize that changing the world around me is a kind of bailing out the ocean with a bucket. I consider that realization I eventually came up with as the real beginning of an actual maturity in my personality. Being totally convinced and relieved about that conclusion, I started to see things from different perspectives. I told myself that perhaps it’s time to relegate this task. Eventually, I restructured my way of thinking and recognized that there is no need to hold high hopes or to be in a hurry. The best way to make a change is first to accept the fact that we are not living in utopia. As a matter of fact, the world we live in is far from perfect and far from ideal. So, the only thing we could do is to make the change within ourselves. As it is said, everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

The crux of the issue of changing the world is to be realistic enough to realize that things like corruption, poverty, lack of justice and wealth inequality will always be part of our world. I still see many people who have strive hard thinking that they can fix the world on their own. I can understand this naïve enthusiasm for those who are still young. I myself was there and used to think the same. But for those who are mature, I just wonder when they will be able to understand the reality of the world in which we live. Let’s admit that it is ok to exert some efforts on this issue every once in a while, but to spend a lifetime on such a Sisyphean task is just senseless. Those who suffer from hyper-responsibility believe that they have more control over what happens in the world than they actually do. ‘Weltschmerz’ is an awesome German word that describes the state of those people. It describes the feeling of having the weight of world on one’s shoulders.  

To conclude, regardless of the society or the community we live in, we should understand that are not supposed to fix the world and make it a perfect one. Having an illusion of a perfect world would make it even worse. We must be able to see the reality of the world we live in. This is not a call to give up or to feel pessimistic, but to remain in a state of rationality in order to realize that we will not be able to turn our world into a utopian place. The wise thing we can do is to try to be part of the solution not the problem. Let’s not be part of the corruption and the injustice we see in this world. As Jalal al-Din Rumi once said, ‘Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself’.