An interesting word ...

Weltschmertz - Sorrow or sadness over the present or future evils or woes of the world in general; sentimental pessimism.

This word was highly prominent in Canada a few weeks ago, when a local 14 year-old girl came 2nd in the American national spelling bee, misspelling "weltschmertz" to be eliminated. There were complaints via letters to the editor how it was unfair that the Americans could mispronounce "toque", or that they should have given Finola the Americanized pronunciation (w-sound) in addition to the correct/original one (v-sound) - amazing what brings out the conspiracy theorists (the organizers were obviously anti-Canadian, you know).

Last week, I thought about this word (and "ennui") when I was feeling somewhat down and unmotivated to do much of anything ... especially after my leg injury, I was incredibly tired, and was worrying too much about the "woes of the world in general". Maybe it was related to all the rain and cold we had last week too, I don't know - but feeling much better this week, no more weltschmertz nor ennui :-).

(and I was able to run today for just over 20 minutes, with only a few twinges and slight aching from my left lower leg that was injured ... so I should at least be able to manage the 5 km run in the triathlon on Sunday, even if then I can't run afterwards for another while).