The way to love someone
is to lightly run your finger over that person's soul
until you find a crack,
and then gently pour your love into that crack.
~Keith Miller

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

"23 emotions people (may) feel, but can't explain" - newly made up words



I wonder, what would the word for this emotion be : how one feels fortifying themselves to say goodbye to a person they have come to care for who has become absence, or uninvested from the friendship. It would have to be a word able to "hold" the disappointment one feels when realizing they have been "pouring" their time (which may be their love "language") in to an increasingly one sided friendship. It should also include the sadness experienced as the courtesy of a sweet goodbye passes without a gesture. It should somehow include the notion of a "rite of closure" when one comes to realize they must protect themselves where before they were intentionally vulnerable. Is there a word for that?

Following by Josh Jones - writer/Open Culture

 It may be a misconception, it may be a cliché: I’m not a German speaker—but reading translator’s introductions to, say, Kant, Hegel or Goethe has convinced me that their language does a much better job than English at capturing those oddly specific twilight moods and compound feelings that so often escape definition. Then again, English absorbs, cannibalizes, appropriates, steals, and bastardizes words wherever it can find them, driving lexicographers and grammar purists mad. Graphic designer and filmmaker John Koenig does all of these things in his “Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows,” a blog project in which he names emotions that otherwise leave us speechless. In his short video above, he illustrates one of his words, “Sonder,” or “the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own…”—something like the shock of sudden empathy that shakes us out of navel-gazing. It’s an emotion I’ve experienced, without knowing what to call it. This being an “obscure sorrow,” there’s more to it than empathy—in Koenig’s poetic video, “sonder” relates to the infinite number of overlapping stories, in which each of us feels we are the hero, others supporting cast or extras. In a state of “sonder,” we suddenly occupy all of those roles at once, our screen time diminishing as others take the lead. After watching Koenig’s film, I’m thinking “sonder” is a portmanteau of “sublime” and “wonder.” It’s a mystical philosophy contained within a single made-up word. Some other Koenig coinages: “Ruckkehrunruhe,” “nodus tollens,” “adronitis,” “rigor samsa”….. I leave it to you to visit Koenig’s Dictionary and learn what these words mean. It’s an experience well worth your time.

4 comments:

Chris said...

I engage in jouska quite a bit. Sometimes it morphs into talking to myself by having a conversation out loud. This usually leads to Exulansis.

Great article

DeAnn said...

that's funny

Gretchenjoanna said...

Fascinating to think about... I think I experience most of these as variations on anxiety. But I'm definitely bookmarking this post!

DeAnn said...

I'll send you a YouTube link - you may enjoy viewing the short videos which accompany some of the words.