Today’s Germanism in the English language is the term Anwesenheit (pronounce ‘un-vah-zen-hite, meaning presence). I was thrilled to come up with some ideas, but even more surprised when I realized that the only field in which the Germanism is used over here is psychology! Here is a definition by Wikipedia: “Anwesenheit refers to the false perception of an unfamiliar presence. It is commonly associated with periods of grief, schizophrenia and other emotional disturbances.”
Only recently, I have been watching the movie “Jimmy” (2013) about a young, developmentally challenged boy who interacts with characters only he can see. He calls them watchers, and they are sort of visible guardian angels. It’s a lovely story (at times disturbing, though certainly NOT because of the boy). Here is the link to the official trailer:
I was not aware that these presences would be called Anwesenheiten in psychology. It makes sense, though, as these “persons” are a reality to Jimmy only and shape part of his life.
Now, Anwesenheit is also the opposite of Abwesenheit in German (pronounce ‘up-vah-zen-hite, meaning absence). It refers to something physical as well as mental. Anwesenheit in the latter field means that one is fully “there” with one’s mind, whereas Abwesenheit could simply mean that one is distracted. It doesn’t mean that a person is a case for a psychologist. It could mean that there are more important things on a person’s mind. It could mean that one is simply too exhausted to follow a specific topic. Basically, it means that one is shutting off the mind from following whatever it is meant to follow by others and wander on its own path deliberately. I’ll take it a notch farther and would call the deliberate shut-off of the mind without a goal orientation daydreaming. I’m NOT a psychologist, but I certainly know when I’m daydreaming.
Physical Anwesenheit was something that was controlled in my grammar school days pretty strictly. There were roll calls in most classes until we entered the final years and we were there under our own steam and deemed responsible enough to follow the rules. My 5th grade art teacher (who was also in demand for his murals and a puppet-builder renowned especially in France) took headshots of all of us 36 kids and glued them to his seat plan. Woe, if we had changed up the seating after this! It was fun, though, to see these seat plans and how we changed over the years.
One of our 7th grade sports teachers took the military approach. After he had had us run three laps in the school’s gymnasium at the beginning of every sport’s lesson, he had us line up next to each other. I don’t know what was the purpose of him sorting us by height – the only thing I still remember is that I was the seventh tallest kid in our class (of still 36!) and the second tallest girl. These days, as I’m about to shrink, due to age, I feel that the tallness of back then is today’s smallness, and that size still doesn’t say a thing about quality. If it helped the old teacher with a military background from WW II to remember who was present or not, and if it made him feel better that he was still the tallest in the room – good for him. Did I say that Abwesenheit was always marked down by each teacher in a class register?
Interestingly, physical Anwesenheit doesn’t say anything about mental Anwesenheit, whereas somebody whose physical Abwesenheit is noted might be noted for mental Anwesenheit elsewhere.
That being said, I do believe in the Anwesenheit of guardian and saving angels because I have experienced both in so many situations in my life, often even as an answer to a prayer. To me they are spiritual. But if somebody sees theirs – what’s so very bad about that?!
