Campaign to Bring Back Whelmed

21/12/24

Today I had one of those delicious, no obligations days.

I’d already done the basic, pottering, household maintenance jobs (y’know, laundry, floor sweeping, dust relocation, etc) in the preceding days. ‘Cos, let’s be honest, no obligation days sometimes require pre-planning.

So it was that I sat, cup of tea in hand, allowing my mind to roam around at will.

In the past, letting my mind off its leash in this way has often been a bad thing. Left to its own devices, it’s had a tendency to wander into the Marshes of Rumination, which frequently leads right into the Bog of Despair.

Today, in a clear demonstration of how improved my inner space and mental health are, my mind went skippety-skipping off, straight into the meadows of Idle Why.

“Why is it,” it wondered, “that we refer to being underwhelmed, and we refer to being overwhelmed, but we never plump for the middle ground and say we’re just whelmed?“

It only seemed fair that I gave others the opportunity to share in the consideration of such a ground shaking question.

Isla responded that surely the middle ground is ‘content’.

Giorgio suggested the word I was seeking was ‘normal’.

They miss the point.

We don’t say we’re ‘overcontent’, or ‘undercontent’ do we?

Neither do we ever describe ourselves as ‘overnormal’ nor ‘undernormal’. Although I quite like those as emotional state descriptors.

My point is, at some point surely ‘whelmed’ was part of the lexicon?

It would be fun to reintroduce it.

“How’s your day going?“

“Not bad at all; pretty whelmed really.”

And that is what happens, when my mind is free of anxiety and is let out to play.

MUSIC OF THE DAY:

JP