David's Boring Blog

I hate being topical, but here goes. In four short hours Valentine’s Day 2016 will arrive. I know many of you may already have begun celebration in earnest. I also know that there are many more people who don’t celebrate or hate Valentine’s Day for a variety of reasons. I spent a number of awkward childhood and teenage years having my feelings hurt because I did not have a Valentine. I took this to be a sign of something wrong with me. Why was I not worthy of the affection of another human person in that special way? No, I didn’t want to have obscenely biological Valentine’s celebrations. Well, I didn’t want that until much later. I wanted someone to want a card from me. I wanted someone to want to give me a card. I wanted someone to hold my little hand and just spend time with me. That was LONELY. My Mom, being the Saint of a person that she has always been, saw how hurt I was and always did something nice for me. I particularly remember her buying me a stack of Comic Books one year.

Dictionary.com describes weltschmerz as sorrow that one feels and accepts as one’s necessary portion in life or sentimental pessimism”. Weltschmerz literally translates as world pain. It is kind of an emo concept, but one I have struggled with for years. I have spent a long time trying to feel like I fit in with the world around me. I want to be well thought of and liked. Even typing that sounds so massively needy and angst-ridden. I don’t want to be emo, full of angst, or needy. In fact, the desire to not be all those things is much stronger than my seemingly socially programmed need to fit in. The two opposing emotions do an interesting amount of battle inside of me. When I was a younger man I defined two things about myself that were very self-destructive. First, I wanted to be a nice guy. It wasn’t enough that I view myself as nice. I wanted other people to see me as the paragon of niceness though not of virtue. Secondly, I wanted to be not only educated or sophisticated, but I wan