Fun Fact of the Week: Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows Part 2
This is the second part of an article detailing some findings from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a book published in 2021 by John Koenig, which seeks to give a name to countless feelings (not necessarily all sad) that we all experience as humans, but don’t often have the words to describe. Pretty much all of these words are made up, but aren’t all words anyway?
Kairosclerosis: n. The moment you realize that you’re currently happy, and try to understand, pick apart, and savor the feeling, which does nothing but diminish it.
Maru Mori: The heartbreaking simplicity of ordinary things. The sadness that evenings with friends, doodle in textbooks, or the petting of a cat, don’t get immortalized for their purity and beauty.
Vemödalen: n. The fear that originality is no longer possible.
Pax latrina: n. The meditative atmosphere of being alone in a bathroom, sequestered away inside your own little isolation booth, enjoying a moment backstage from the razzle-dazzle of public life.
Jouska: n. A hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head– a crisp analysis, a devastating comeback, a cathartic heart-to-heart– serves as a psychological batting cage.
Licotic: adj. Anxiously excited to introduce a friend to something you think is amazing– a classic album, a favorite restaurant, a great TV show– which prompts you to continually poll their face watching for the inevitable rush of awe, only to cringe when you realize all of the work’s flaws.
The kick drop: n. The moment you wake up and realize that everything that just happened was a dream, and you have to recalibrate your expectations for the world, both good and bad.
Chthosis: n. The awareness of how little we really know.
Onism: n. the awareness of how little of the world you’ll experience.
Rückkehrunruhe: n. The feeling of returning from an immersive trip only to notice it fading rapidly from your awareness, as if your brain had automatically assumed it was all just a dream and already went to work scrubbing it from your memory.
Ringlorn: the wish that the modern world felt as epic as the one depicted in old stories and folk tales. A life where every day felt like a quest for glory, steeped in an ancient past, battling against a clear enemy, rather than an open-ended parlor game where all the rules are made up and the points don’t matter.
Gobo: n. The delirium of having spent all day in an aesthetic frame of mind, which infuses the world with an aura of meaning beyond what should be reasonably drawn from simple objects.
Dolonia: n. A state of unease prompted by people who seem to like you too much, which makes you wonder if they must have you confused with someone else– someone flawless, selfless, or easy to understand from a distance.
Liberosis: n. the desire to care less about things; to figure out a way to relax your grip on life.
Nementia: n. the post-distraction effort to recall the reason you’re feeling particularly anxious or angry or excited, trying to resequence your thoughts until you find it.
Funkenzwansvorstellung: n. The primal trance of watching a campfire in the dark.