Study Suggests Malaise May Be Linked to Angst

Torpor, North Dakota, March 9, 2008 -- Partial results released today from a $200 million Umbilicus Observation Center study into psychological conditions indicate that angst may be a significant contributing factor to sufferers of malaise, particularly in adolescents, and vice versa. Other factors may include ennui, lassitude, butterflies, jitters, apathy, doldrums and the heebie-jeebies.

The findings were initially planned to include a comprehensive set of ameliorative recommendations, but that section was withdrawn from part II prior to publication because the study "wasn't really feeling up to it right now".

According to Dr. Edwin P. Thimbleskin, a chief administrator at the center, the study found that angst may commonly be caused by widespread, dimly experienced low-level apperceptions of existential anxiety, brought on, perhaps, by a mild melancholy and lassitude that may be causally related to dimly experienced low-level apperceptions of existential anxiety.

"There's a definite relationship between one of the things and the other thing," said Dr. Thimbleskin. "We collected simply masses of conclusive indicators that we saw no particular reason so classify and sort. I suppose we could look into them at some point, but, really, why the hell should we bother? We're all going to die someday, anyway."

The initial Umbilicus Observation Center research was conducted using interviews with a cross-section of nearly 20,000 teenagers and young adults, all of whom displayed symptoms of either malaise or angst, with a roughly even distribution. A control group of 20 teenage angst or malaise non-sufferers was unable to be found.

Follow-up interviews conducted 18 months later found the same distribution, but, in virtually all cases, came to the startling discovery that those who had previously experienced malaise were now suffering from angst, and vice versa.

"There's probably a reason for that," explained Dr. Thimbleskin. "But so what?"

One challenge experienced by the study's administrators was the difficulty of extracting meaningful or intelligible replies to interview questions from the study's nearly universally apathetic subjects.

"A typical question," Dr. Thimbleskin elaborated, "would be: 'Do you as a teenager find yourself weighed down or suffering from anxiety or discomfort that may be due to a general frustration associated with a conflict between your actual responsibilities to self, your principles (if any), and others, which may or may not include faith or belief in, or the lack thereof, a deity or a guiding purpose?' The most comprehensive reply we received after 19,455 individually conducted interviews was, 'Sometimes'."

The Umbilicus Observation Center was unable to provide any further information on the study because it "was feeling pretty beat".

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor