Enough has been said about him. Enough has been written about him. I was waiting for the day after when when we would wake to a new world. We did, for a moment, but a day later the media was all over it again like a dog on a bone. Not because there was some illuminating new information, but because, like comedians, they had struck a gusher in their own backyards that was pumping crude. Texas tea.

You can’t change the dial. No matter how much you wish you could look away, avert your gaze. You can’t. We are addicted and there is no 12 step program. We could give our problems up to a higher power but I’m pretty sure they can’t look away either.

Selbstelend – German is a cool language because they combinate words. So, not speaking enough German to ask more than where the toilet is, I feel I am more than qualified to combinate. Literally my new word means “Self-Pain”. Oh sure, we all know Shadenfreuda, but this is the age of “Selbstelend” taking pleasure from our own pain. It is the only explanation I can come up with. Even through it makes us want to wretch, we rush to toilet and derive pleasure from barfing.

I wish we could take a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down but all we get is sweet and sour; and it rests in the back of our throats, a reminder that we will wretch again.

Like any addiction we have to ween ourselves. Reduce your Selbstelend a bit at a time. Watch one less video every day. Read one less news story. Have one fewer thought of that which is best served cold. I can’t say that this is a cure, but a treatment. The disease has made itself known. It is measurably greater than we imagined and it will keep happening again and again. The truth is, we have taken a baseball bat to the head, and decided we like it.