"If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit by me!"

I'm not sure if what I am about to describe is general or specific. That is, I'm not sure whether it is a characteristic of my own background and foreground or something broader. I suspect that it is something broader. So, why is it that we are more interested in another's misfortune than another's good fortune? Gossip is rarely positive. We don't often whisper nice asides to our neighbors. And pleasant, praising remarks about a third party rarely generate giggles of complicity. Why?

To speak of one's own achievements is considering bragging and pompous. But we can always find ears excited to hear about our trials and tribulations. Even though lauding the accomplishments of one's children is a relatively common practice, we still tend, at least a little, to tolerate rather than enjoy it. Oddly, the engagement and affective attachment generated by complaints, errors, misfortune, even tragedy, is strong with those we love as well as with acquaintances or relative strangers.

Is this simply schadenfreude? Or is there something about misfortune or error or tragedy that creates opportunities for connection? Does another's unhappiness enable us to feel like we can help, make a difference, that we are needed and valued? So, even though it seems we are simply relishing the story of another's fall, are we not also working through ways of insuring that similar misfortune does not happen to us? Success doesn't give us much to talk about. But failure opens us to myriad possibilities, almost as if there is something preferable about failure--it changes our world, our course, the path we though we were taking.

I backed into a car in a parking lot evening. I left a note (but I hope they don't call me).

Comments

[hugh]

Aristotle says of tragedy that "through pity and fear [it effects] the proper purgation of these emotions".