I was talking with some electricians the other day, and somehow we got on Arc Flashes. This is a potentially fatal, more or less explosion that can happen when working hot on high voltage panels. You can Google it.
For my part, I Googled it, and watched a few videos. Here is one example.
As I watched these videos, I did so with a simultaneous trepidation and excitement. I watched that excitement, and wondered about it. Somebody was getting ready to get zapped–fatally, for all I knew–and here I was looking forward to it, as a sort of thrill.
Don’t most of us feel that when we see a car accident? Do you sometimes see people working high on buildings, and think about how it would be interesting if you saw them fall? I don’t feel this often, but I do. I’m no saint. This effect is especially pronounced when I am under a lot of stress and/or very tired.
This is the basic idea of most violent movies. People want to see people hurt, but they have to be set up first as bad guys so that we can sanction our pleasure in their frequently painful demises.
This is Schadenfreude, which is a German word meaning roughly “pleasure in the misfortunes of others”. We like to think it is just when people who deserve it get their comeuppance, but in reality most people are just jealous sometimes, and like to see the mighty hurt.
I heard Bono compare Ireland the United States once thus: [roughly] “In the United States, you look at the man on the hill, and think ‘someday that will be me’. In Ireland they look at him and think ‘someday I’m going to get that bastard'”.
A truly Good person will always want what is best for those around them (and for themselves). Me, I have not achieved that. I still get angry, frustrated, and sometimes want to strike out. I know I am not alone in this. I think the cure starts with being honest about this, and proceeds with trying to open that part of yourself that is in instinctive communion with others, and which already wants what is best both for you and for them. It’s already there, but it gets perverted and lost, in my view.
Signed,
Grumpy the Dwarf