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I was trying to tweet about some cosmic injustices and wanted to describe it better than just saying "unduly sad", or "unfair". Any suggestions?

Examples of the emotional state I'm trying to describe: When you realize that mankind will likely never expand beyond our local global cluster and you feel sad, even though the local group is still pretty big.

We should be thrilled about recent increases in life space, but when you are actually unduly feeling cheated because Adam and Eve maybe lived to 900, even though you know that probably isn't even accurate.

When you are sad to learn the sun will expand and burn up the earth in few billion years, even though that is a ridiculously long time from now.

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  • Can you write an example sentence where the word or phrase would be used? The following is the strict rule of this community. Questions on choosing an ideal word or phrase must include information on how it will be used in order to be answered. For help writing a good word or phrase request, see: About single word requests.
    – user140086
    Jun 18, 2016 at 13:34
  • Sad truth about life? See more: brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/sad_truth.html and goodreads.com/quotes/tag/sad-truth and theultralinx.com/2016/06/…
    – NVZ
    Jun 18, 2016 at 14:41
  • Local global cluster? Do you mean the Local Group (the galaxy group that includes the Milky Way)? If we ever make it to even the nearest (Andromeda, 2.5 million light years away), we'd almost certainly be capable of going beyond the Local Group (which is "only" 10 Mly across). Jun 18, 2016 at 15:36
  • @FumbleFingers - Yes - Local Group is exactly what I meant - I've edited the question to reflect this. Thanks.
    – JJ Rohrer
    Jun 19, 2016 at 21:11
  • @Rathony I tried to include three examples above, but wrote "you feel sad", "unduly feeling cheated", and "you are sad." I'm looking for a better word or phrase.
    – JJ Rohrer
    Jun 19, 2016 at 21:18

1 Answer 1

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I'd say this is a case of weltschmerz.

Weltschmerz (from the German, meaning world-pain or world-weariness, pronounced [ˈvɛltʃmɛɐ̯ts]) is a term coined by the German author Jean Paul and denotes the kind of feeling experienced by someone who believes that physical reality can never satisfy the demands of the mind.

Reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weltschmerz

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