For years I was never quite sure what schadenfreude meant, when I finally looked it up on wikipedia the ‘antonyms’ section introduced me to the Buddhist concept of Mudita which I liked and as it came up during the course of my day today I thought I’d do a little post about it.

In the Punnett Square of Happiness and Unhappiness against Fortune in others and Misfortune in others Mudita is the coolest one: Happiness in another’s fortune. Joy at their joy.

The term mudita is usually translated as “sympathetic” or “altruistic” joy, the pleasure that comes from delighting in other people’s well-being rather than begrudging it. Many Buddhist teachers interpret mudita more broadly as referring to an inner spring of infinite joy that is available to everyone at all times, regardless of circumstances. The more deeply one drinks of this spring, the more secure one becomes in one’s own abundant happiness, and the easier it then becomes to relish the joy of other people as well.

How awesome is that?

Also for more German loanword fun check out Claire Rayner on Zeitguest. Also.

An engineer from Nuneaton may have let the opportunity for a pun carry him away slightly:

A Nuneaton engineer says he has been snowed under by orders for sledges built from car exhaust pipes.

…”I’ve had two orders from people stopping me to say: ‘I love that – can I have one?’.”

In later years as he looks back on his exhaust sledge empire he’ll no doubt reminisce how things snowballed from here. All the time he’s spending away from his family building these sledges must be leaving him on thin ice with his wife. His dogs must be exhausted etc…

The BBC have published their “100 Things We Didn’t Know Last Year”.

Personal Favourite:

2. Gold medal winner Chris Hoy was inspired to cycle by ET.

If I was going to pick an early 80s sci-fi film to inspire me to ride a bike I would at least have said Tron.

Laloo was born in Oudh, India as the second of four siblings in 1874. He was accompanied into this world by his parasitic twin brother who was little more than a headless mass of limbs attached to his breastbone.

His advertisements often billed him as the ‘Handsome, Healthy, Happy Hindoo’ – as ‘exotic’ acts and persons were all the rage in America at that time. Also, in a bit of common showmanship, he would often dress his brother as a girl and advertise the twin as his sister. That is, until that erection issue started to throw a wrench into the act.

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Nowadays people that are called polymaths are dabblers—are dabblers in many different areas. I aspire to be an intellectual polygamist. And I deliberately use that metaphor to provoke with its sexual allusion and to point out the real difference to me between polygamy and promiscuity. To me, promiscuity is a way of flitting around. Polygamy, serious polygamy, is where you have various marriages and each of them is important. And in the ideal polygamy I suspect there’s no number one wife and no number six wife. You have a deep connection with each person.

- Carl Djerassi on Polymaths

(via Intelligent Life)