Schadenfreude and our subconscious
There's a rainbow always after the rain.
The night will soon give way to the dawn.
We've repeatedly heard some variation of either in our relatively short lives during the many turbulent times we've experienced. Although they may be trite, they are at times the only thing we need to hear. The problem is that we as either giver or recipient have never sufficiently thought their meanings through vis-a-vis the reality on which they are based on.
Let us take for example the rainbow. Oh yes, rainbows are very pretty and are a delight to see (especially since I rarely see any these days). Yet as we've learned in high school, rainbows require two things. First, the onlooker must be in a place where there is sunlight and no rain. Second, there must be a nearby place being showered by rain. Without the second, there will be no rainbow to see. There you have it. For any little child, even the ones inside of us, to delight in their rainbow, another little child somewhere must not only be deprived of it but must also be trapped in the house because of rain. Come to think of it, "there's a rainbow always after the rain" may not be so trite after all. Given what I've said it actually means "the rain pouring on you will surely transfer to some other schmuck soon enough." It's a message I find altogether more refreshing than the South Border line.
The second phrase is even better: "the night will soon give way to the dawn." Not only is it subject to the same subconscious schadenfreude, it is also a very dumb thing to say. As something we've also learned as early as grade school, the existence of day and night rely on the earth's rotation. At any single point in time, half of the earth is bathed in sunlight while the other is hidden from it. Again we have the same situation as in our figurative rainbow. So it actually means "the night you're experiencing now will surely transfer to some other schmuck soon enough." Unlike the rainbow though, the coming dawn also means that dusk is lurking just a few hours away. So a more accurate translation would be "the night you're experiencing now will surely transfer to some other schmuck soon enough, except that after that it will come back to you - schmuck."
The night will soon give way to the dawn.
We've repeatedly heard some variation of either in our relatively short lives during the many turbulent times we've experienced. Although they may be trite, they are at times the only thing we need to hear. The problem is that we as either giver or recipient have never sufficiently thought their meanings through vis-a-vis the reality on which they are based on.
Let us take for example the rainbow. Oh yes, rainbows are very pretty and are a delight to see (especially since I rarely see any these days). Yet as we've learned in high school, rainbows require two things. First, the onlooker must be in a place where there is sunlight and no rain. Second, there must be a nearby place being showered by rain. Without the second, there will be no rainbow to see. There you have it. For any little child, even the ones inside of us, to delight in their rainbow, another little child somewhere must not only be deprived of it but must also be trapped in the house because of rain. Come to think of it, "there's a rainbow always after the rain" may not be so trite after all. Given what I've said it actually means "the rain pouring on you will surely transfer to some other schmuck soon enough." It's a message I find altogether more refreshing than the South Border line.
The second phrase is even better: "the night will soon give way to the dawn." Not only is it subject to the same subconscious schadenfreude, it is also a very dumb thing to say. As something we've also learned as early as grade school, the existence of day and night rely on the earth's rotation. At any single point in time, half of the earth is bathed in sunlight while the other is hidden from it. Again we have the same situation as in our figurative rainbow. So it actually means "the night you're experiencing now will surely transfer to some other schmuck soon enough." Unlike the rainbow though, the coming dawn also means that dusk is lurking just a few hours away. So a more accurate translation would be "the night you're experiencing now will surely transfer to some other schmuck soon enough, except that after that it will come back to you - schmuck."