CLOBS came after BLOBs when people started realizing that text deserves special consideration. Not all databases support CLOB primitives, but many ORM systems can at least handle the differences well. Which is good, since
Java likes 16-bit Unicode, but a lot of character storage mechanisms are oriented more towards 8-bit ASCII.
The secret of how to be miserable is to constantly expect things are going to happen the way that they are "supposed" to happen.
You can have faith, which carries the understanding that you may be disappointed. Then there's being a willfully-blind idiot, which virtually guarantees it.