I have had this happen to me before. The situation was horrible and I just started laughing. I and everyone around me thought I was crazy. I felt horrible and it is a nightmare I still have sometimes.
Today I laughed inside my head while my face expressed sympathy and the words coming out expressed concern. Nothing serious happened to this person. What I felt was Schadenfreude.
( “ohhh, realyyyyy?”)
Schadenfreude is a German word for pleasure derived from another person’s misfortune. We all feel it and either repress it, push it away or make it personal. We all know that this tendency is not admirable so we hide it. However, when we hide these things not only from others, but from ourselves, we hide a flaw that is inherent in us as humans. We all like to believe that only bad people do and think bad things and that good people do every so often, but must feel guilty about it. Schadenfreude is part of who we are. It is the reason we laugh. We must not indulge in it, but we also must accept it. Who…
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Because I can... 