Ahhhh freudenfreude! that bliss that you will feel when someone else succeeds
I am not much on bucket lists or New Year’s resolutions.
I have to say there is nothing on my ‘list’ that I need to do or just would like to do before I die that would make my life complete.
I am a sinner saved by grace and while I know I need to work out my Salvation with fear and trembling, I also KNOW that when I do die, bold will I approach the throne, confident and wrapped in the gift of that grace.
Not much I can do or see here on earth to improve on that in my back pocket.
As for resolutions, I guess if its worth doing, it worth doing now rather than the an arbitrary state-by-date set by a calendar devised by people a long time ago.
In the spirit of the New Year and looking ahead (maybe not forward) to the 2023, I pass along Ms. Pearson’s 6 Tips.
Assume people like you.
Don’t underestimate small acts of kindness.
Embrace the power of the casual check-in.
‘Turn toward’ your partner throughout the day.
Acknowledge the ‘normal marital hatred,’ too.
Cultivate ‘freudenfreude.’
That’s it.
The article does give some background on each tip, but just by themselves, if read introspectively, has just enough words to make the point.
And it’s is that last that really caught my eye.
Cultivate ‘freudenfreude’.
Ms. Pearson writes;
Unlike schadenfreude, when we take pleasure in others’ misfortunes, “freudenfreude” describes the bliss we feel when someone else succeeds — even if it doesn’t involve us.
There are benefits to sharing in someone else’s joy.
It can foster resilience and improve life satisfaction.
Freudenfreude.
I was not aware of the word but maybe I was aware of the feeling.
My sister Mary once wrote of our Mother something like, that our Mom had the gift to enjoy and be proud of other people’s good fortune without being or appearing to be envious.
Freudenfreude.
I think of my Mom at Church.
I remember how people would seek out my Mom to tell her things.
They got a job.
They finished school.
Their child was getting married.
It didn’t matter what.
But what ever it was, my Mom was excited and happy for the news and excited and happy in such a way that whoever was talking to her was pleased that she was excited and happy for them.
I remember a Sunday sermon where the Pastor was preaching on spiritual gifts.
He mentioned the gifts in the Bible like the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, faith, healing, miraculous powers, prophecy.
Then he mentioned everyday things.
The gifts of song.
Some people can just sing, he said.
The gifts of teaching.
Some people can just teach, he said.
Then he said some people being happy, so happy they can just make you feel good.
Some people, if you just sit next to them, make you feel good.
Then he paused.
Then the Pastor pointed over to the left at my Mom.
“Go sit next to Mrs. Hoffman.”
“FIND OUT HOW SHE DOES THAT!”
Freudenfreude.
At my Mom’s funeral, we all got a chance to say something about our Mom.
My brother Tim demonstrated calling my Mom with good news.
He took out a cell phone and showed how you would punch in her number and say hello when Mom answered and then tell her the good news.
He immediately took the phone from his ear and held it arms length.
And we all laughed.
Because, no matter the good news, Mom would SCREAM OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH and if you didn’t hold the phone away from your ear, you stood a good chance of losing an ear drum.
My Mom felt bliss expressed when someone else succeeded.
Freudenfreude.
My Mom and my 4 youngest kids Lexi, Ellie Dasia and Jack
Seems like there hasn’t been a lot of freudenfreude going around lately.
A lot of schadenfreude in today’s world.
A lot of just plain meanness.
A lot of just plain ugliness.
A of lot of watching other people dealing with meanness and ugliness.
A little Freudenfreude …
The bliss we feel when someone else succeeds — even if it doesn’t involve us.
Ms. Pearson closes with this paragraph.
One easy way to experience more freudenfreude is to check in with your friends and loved ones about their small victories or the bright spots in their day.
Doing so turns you into a “joy spectator” — and gives you an opportunity to see the people around you at their best.
Going into 2023 I plan to engage freudenfreude.
Going into 2023 I want to take advantage of any opportunity to see the people around me at their best.
It can foster resilience and improve life satisfaction.
one important thing! don’t have a real story you don’t have a real self
Two stanzas a six syllable word in the wrong spot.
Oh well, my blog, my rules.
Taken from the passage:
A reasonably accurate and coherent autobiographical narrative is one of the most important things a person can have. If you don’t have a real story, you don’t have a real self.
As it was written in the opinion piece, The Sad Tales of George Santos, by David Brooks, in the Dec 28, 2023 New York Times.
Mr. Brook’s comments:
America has always had impostors and people who reinvented their pasts.
(If he were real, Jay Gatsby might have lived — estimations of the precise locations of the fictional East and West Egg vary — in what is now Santos’s district.)
This feels different.
I wonder if the era of the short-attention spans and the online avatars is creating a new character type: the person who doesn’t experience life as an accumulation over decades, but just as a series of disjointed performances in the here and now, with an echo of hollowness inside.
Christmas in work ‘ouse paupers ‘earts full of goodwill bellies full of beer
When I was in high school, I watched a Christmas TV movie titled The Gathering with my Mom.
The movie starred Ed Asner who, at that time, was at the top of his fame has the News Director on the Mary Tyler Moore show.
There were a lot of scenes in that movie that stayed with me like when Asner sets off a big box load of fireworks on Christmas Eve.
Another one in particular though was when the Asner character and his buddies gathered in the back of the kitchen for a recitation by Asner of what was claimed to be a poem titled, Christmas in the Workhouse.
It was bawdy and for the off color words, Asner would pause and his buddies would clink their glasses instead of saying the word.
For some reason I always thought the poem was by Charles Dickens.
But I was unsuccessful whenever I went looking for such a poem by Mr. Dickens.
For some other reason this scene came to mind recently and I dove into the Google to see if I could track it down.
First I was able to find the scene in question.
Watching the scene again for the first time since 1977, I caught that the buddies attributed the poem to Rudyard Kipling.
So into the google goes Kipling and Christmas in the Workhouse.
And what I got back was, a poem that appeared in The Gathering, a 1977 TV movie starring Ed Asner.
Full circle and the magic of the World Wide Web.
But there were other links, including a Wikipedia page for Christmas Day in the Workhouse or In the Workhouse : Christmas Day, a dramatic monologue written as a ballad by campaigning journalist George Robert Sims and first published in The Referee for the Christmas of 1877.
This is the Wikipedia version:
It is Christmas Day in the Workhouse, And the cold bare walls are bright With garlands of green and holly, And the place is a pleasant sight; For with clean-washed hands and faces, In a long and hungry line The paupers sit at the tables, For this is the hour they dine.
And the guardians and their ladies, Although the wind is east, Have come in their furs and wrappers, To watch their charges feast; To smile and be condescending, Put pudding on pauper plates, To be hosts at the workhouse banquet They’ve paid for—with the rates
Wikipedia states that the poem is a criticism of the harsh conditions in English and Welsh workhouses under the 1834 Poor Law. As a popular and sentimental melodrama, the work has been parodied many times.
I am not up on my history of the 1834 Poor Law but I bet they made it against the law to be poor and any one who dared to be poor was thrown into jail or a workhouse until such time as that person would no longer be poor.
Kinda like a law against someone being homeless but not providing a home for such a person I guess.
And the version that Ed Asner recites is one of those parody versions.
There were also enough links that it seems the parody versions were quite popular in those Brit Boarding schools and lots of people posted fond memories of learning and reciting.
So here is your toast, as recited by Mr. Asner.
Feel free to adapt and use as you can this holiday season.
‘Twas Christmas in the work ‘ouse, The best day of the year, And the paupers all was ‘appy, For their guts was full of beer.
Now the master of the work ’ouse, Strode them dismal ‘alls, And wished the men ‘Merry Christmas,’ And the workers hollered, “—–.”
Now the master he grew angry, And swore by all the gods, “They’ll ‘ave no Christmas pudding, The lousy lunk of sods.”
When up stood a war scarred veteran, Who’d stormed the Khyber Pass, And said, “You can take your Christmas pudding And stuff it up your a….!”
when the sessions of sweet silent thought summon up remembrance things past
Crestview Elementary 1967 Not the class in question – but the same kids, same gym, same Principal and note the Student Teacher on the far left
Shamelessly stolen from Big Bill’s Sonnet XXX:
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
When sleep is hard to find, it is helpful to ease my mind into sessions of sweet thought and remembrance of things past and take up my time while hoping for sleep.
Hard to feel my time is dear or that time is dear to me, as the old woes crowd in on new ones.
And there is so much past to remember at this time of year.
Christmas time.
Remembrance of Christmas times past.
The remembrance that comes to mind is one of singing.
Singing at school.
A simple, sweet act of singing a Christmas carol with your class in front of a gym full of parents.
A simple act of pure terror.
I don’t know about things today, but my days at Crestview Elementary School in Grand Rapids, Michigan where I grew up, had a lot of singing.
Each day started with the class singing a patriotic song, America the Beautiful or My Country ‘Tis of Thee.
Then a couple of times a month, the Grand Rapids Public Schools Music Teacher assigned to Crestview would show up and talk about music and even, as I remember it, play current top records and teach us songs to sing.
And at Crestview, once a month of so, the entire school would get together for a gym sing in the gym where all the kids sat on the floor and sang.
I remember that copies of a chorus book of some kind would be handed that had just the words of the songs, not bothering with the music as no one could read music.
We didn’t really need the chorus books either as we knew the words to most of the songs.
We sang mostly American Standards like Grand Old Flag and Yankee Doodle and Over Hill, Over Dale.
That one was a favorite for the line, “For its HIGH HIGH HEE in the FIELD ARTILLERY, COUNT OFF YOUR NUMBERS LOUD AND STRONG … and with one voice, everyone in that gym yelled out ONE – TWO.
We also loved a song about lunchtime that I had to search out just now.
The Google says the song is Today is Monday and the verses went:
Today is Monday, today is Monday. Monday bread and butter. All you hungry Soldiers, We wish the same to you …
Each line of the song was a different day and there was something different to eat.
As you sang through the song, you had to repeat all the days:
Today is Tuesday, Today is Tuesday, Tuesday string beans Monday bread and butter.
The highlight of this song was Wednesday because the line for Wednesday was:
Wednesday Soup.
But not soup.
But SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO – uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup with the uuuuuuuuuuuuuuup being a loud austrialian rising interrogative.
Maybe half the gym sang the song but everybody and I MEAN EVERYBODY hit the soooooooooooooooooooooo-uuuuuuuuuuuuuuup-peh.
The sound made the gym floor vibrate.
I can still hear and feel it.
Now a bit of digression, I will end up back in the gym with this song, another thing that happened often or often enough at Crestview that we always talked about it was a Fruit Roll.
A day would be picked and the word would go out and everyone would bring a piece of fruit to class and hide it in their desk and a some point, someone would yell FRUIT ROLL and we would get our piece of fruit and roll it down the aisle to the front of the class.
Understand this meant as to be something nice for your teacher.
The teacher got to bring all the fruit home.
A Fruit Roll was supposed to be a surprise but as Crestview was a neighborhood school and most kids went home for lunch, the teachers had to notice either the fruit being smuggled into the room or the smell of ripe apples and bananas hidden in our desks.
A goofy thing about this is that the teachers bought the into the Fruit Roll as something that was a part of our school.
One year, as I remember it, there was a student teacher at Crestview that everyone liked and when her term finished up, a teacher came up with the idea that it would nice if the her class had a fruit roll for her on her last day.
This plan grew until it was decided to have a school wide fruit roll, in the gym, during a gym sing.
The teachers decided that signal to roll the fruit would be the Today is Monday song.
And the word went out to all the classes that when we got to the line about Friday, instead of singing:
Today is Friday, Today is Friday, Friday fish (and it was sung fiiiiiii-ISH)
We would sing:
Today is Friday, Today is Friday, Friday FRUITROLL
And then the whole school was supposed roll their fruit at this departing student teacher.
Whoever thought this one up did not think this one through.
There aren’t the words I need to describe what happened.
Because the entire thing went off just as it was planned.
We filed into the gym and sat on the floor.
The student teacher was introduced by the Principal who told the student teacher we wanted to sing her a song.
The student teacher stood in front of all of us.
Tears in her eyes.
We started singing Today is Monday, Today is …
I tell you, you could feel electricity build up like a thunderstorm in that gym as we went through each verse.
The suspense was Hitchcockian.
We got to line about Friday.
We sang, TODAY IS FRIDAY TODAY IS FRIDAY.
FRIDAY ….
FRUITROLL!
And some 300 kids threw a piece of fruit at this poor student teacher.
I think I was in third grade.
I loved it.
Organic planned chaos.
Had it been a prank it would have been in contention for greatest school prank ever.
But it wasn’t a prank.
It had been planned by my teachers.
The Principal was in on it.
I was so proud to live in a country where things like this could happen!
I remember standing in about the 4th row, fruit flying every where.
The student teacher and the Principal hid behind the piano.
The noise, I don’t mean screams or yells, it was just NOISE, a roar, was overwhelming.
Apples, oranges, bananas and bunches of grapes were everywhere.
Someone hippie type threw a green pepper that exploded marvelously on the wall.
I want to say an entire pineapple went flying by.
I was hugging myself hard and jumping up and down and laughing so hard I thought I was going wet my pants.
And it went on and on.
The teachers, worried about low turn out I guess, had brought grocery bags of apples and the big sixth graders in the back row of the gym found the fresh ammunition and they kept the fruit flying.
It went off so perfectly wrong that the grown ups were caught off guard and didn’t move in time to try and stop it and by the time they did try, it was too late.
In the middle of all this, and this is as clear to me as any part of this memory, my teacher, my 3rd grade teacher, Miss Reynolds, who always had an eye on me, walked up to me.
She kind of understood that this fruit roll, on the whole, appealed to my nature about what higher education was all about.
It was like she wanted to say, you’re really enjoying this aren’t you, except she didn’t have to say it.
We looked at each other and we knew.
And then she handed me one last great big shiny apple.
And she looked me in the eye and said, “JUST MAKE SURE YOU ROLL IT.”
I really wanted to throw it as hard as I could, but this, I felt, was a matter and moment of trust and I rolled that apple down the gym floor.
It was the last piece of fruit in the great Friday Fruit Roll.
Some teacher came in with a box and all the fruit was picked.
The Janitor came and looked at the wall and started wiping up the green pepper.
And, I think, the Principal called for the next song.
I went to that same school for the next 3 grades.
Nothing like that ever happened again.
It was in that same gym that the school held the school programs for Parents.
Each December the Music Teacher would assign each class a Christmas Carol.
Each class would spend a month learning that song.
I was always envious of any class that got We Three Kings because they seemed to have so much fun hitting the OOOOOOO on OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH-OOOOOO Star of Wonder.
It happened every winter.
There was no escape.
No one asked if you could sing.
No one asked if you wanted to be in a choir.
Each class, each and everyone in each class, sang.
I have seen TV shows and Movies that have scenes of a locker room where a football team is getting ready for their game.
The moody silence.
The anxiety.
The focus.
The fears.
Those scenes in those locker rooms were nothing like what we went through in those classrooms waiting for our turn to file down the hallway and enter the gym from a side door and line up on the stage in front of row upon row of parents.
What I remember thinking is how come no asked me if I WANTED to do this.
One year I did ask raise my hand in class and asked WHY we had to this.
I remember that the answer was our parents wanted to see us.
We were doing this for them.
But I was 8th of 11 kids.
I knew what my Dad was saying at home about having to go to another school program.
At least for my parents, they had a good shot of having 4 of 5 different kids in different classes up there singing.
It was full night of entertainment for them.
They got to see a lot of performers.
And I wasn’t so sure that my Parents wanted to see me up in front of a couple hundred other parents.
Things just happened to me.
Or things seemed to happen because of me.
I never really felt responsible for these things either.
That’s why I enjoyed the Fruit Roll so much,
It REALLY WASN’T MY FAULT for once.
As it had to, our turn came.
We walked single file out in the hall.
The class that sang before us would file past with faces full of light and relief.
We had to pass another class that had taken seats on the benches in the hallway to wait their turn on the stage after us.
It was like walking past a bunch of paratroopers waiting to bail out over Normandy.
And then it was out turn.
Through the door and into the gym that somehow was brighter than it was during the day.
The music teacher would be at the piano playing a soft introduction to the carol we were about to sing.
It was warmer than usual as the gym was filled with people and most of us boys had on Christmas sweaters.
For some reason, I always seemed to be in the front row.
I think one year I was in the back and managed to fall down the side stairs behind the stage.
And then we sang.
There was the magic of 25 little kids, on the three steps of a small stage in a small gym, singing Silent Night.
It had to be magic.
Once we stated singing, we started forgetting.
Forgetting how hot my sweater was.
Forgetting the crowd.
Forgetting the green pepper stain on the wall.
And we sang.
We all survived.
It was Christmas time.
And the sweet remembrance of time past takes the bad part out of most memories.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor’d, and sorrows end.
PS: The entire sonnet XXX
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrance of things past, I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste: Then can I drown an eye, unus’d to flow, For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night, And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe, And moan th’ expense of many a vanish’d sight; Then can I grieve at grievances foregone, And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan, Which I new pay as if not paid before. But if the while I think on thee, dear friend, All losses are restor’d, and sorrows end.
