Rambling Wild

I’m a little obsessed with the German notion of schadenfreude. It describes a feeling of pleasure someone derives from another’s misfortune. It sounds especially unkind as a concept, but is rampant in daily life. It can be sparked by an embarrassing loss from a despised sports rival, or as a spectator of celebrity divorce, or as witness of the guy in the brand new BMW getting pulled over for failing to signal. As a logical flipside to this unfortunate trait of human nature, it seems like it’s very difficult to share in someone else’s joy without finding some flaw in it.

While I do truly hope for the best for friends and family members, it is difficult not to consider their triumphs in relation to the flaws they must have had to overcome to achieve them. On some level, this makes sense academically. Life is complicated. Relationships are complicated. Pure joy is relatively simple.

My son, Jack, turns 1 this month, which I suppose still makes me a relatively new father. In addition to showing me fatigue that I could have never imagined and constantly pushing me to be a more patient and kinder person, my son has gifted me with the opportunity to step back from my own shortcomings in regards to the way I see the world.

A few days ago, I was laying on the floor with Jack and our hound dog, Charlie. Jack was getting hungry while his mom finished making dinner, and his little baby appetite timer was slowly but surely winding its way down to zero and an impending meltdown. I was doing my best to distract him by building towers of blocks for him to knock over about halfway through construction. After an especially devastating blow to one of my greatest architectural triumphs of the evening, Jack rolled over and spotted one of a Charlie’s newer toys. He picked up the giant rubber acorn and started examining it as Charlie’s interest piqued and propelled her to our spot on the rug.

Jack has recently learned how to share. I know he probably doesn’t understand the actual concept, but he has mastered the physical act of taking an object he enjoys and offering it up for someone else to discover. His favorite game at the moment involves taking his own drool and grime covered toys and putting them in mom’s or dad’s mouth. When he saw that Charlie was interested, Jack shyly held out the acorn. To my surprise, given the hound’s general trepidation for our new tiny and noisy version of me, she gently took the toy from him and held it in her mouth. The baby was obviously delighted.

Charlie must have thought we were playing a careful and diluted game of fetch because she expectantly dropped the toy back in Jack’s lap. The boy was surprisingly in tune with what was going on as he again held up the toy for the dog to take. At this point, diluted or not, Charlie could no longer contain her excitement at the thrill of the chase. She stepped back and let out a long, loud, hound dog howl that was comedically muffled by the large toy in her mouth. My formerly smiling son was now loudly giggling at each movement of their game.

I laid there on the floor smiling wide while I took it in. The only emotion I felt the entire time was a pure joy, induced by the happiness my son felt as he played his first game of fetch with the family dog. It was a success for him whose merit I didn’t have to gauge or feel envy regarding. And it was so complete that, for those few moments while it was happening, I had no fears about a global pandemic, contentious elections, or a shaky world economy. This is something I am working towards employing wherever I can in my personal and professional life. Along with those other important things parenthood is trying its best to teach me, the ability to turn off my inner dialogue and share in someone else’s success will remain hard won and well treasured for the rest of my life.

Ryan Wilkerson grew up in Iowa and now lives in Idaho with his wife and son. He can be reached at [email protected].