The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

by John Koenig

looseleft adj. feeling a sense of loss upon finishing a good book, sensing the weight of the back cover locking away the lives of characters you’ve gotten to know so well. From looseleaf, a removable sheet of paper + left, departed.

justing n. the habit of telling yourself that just one tweak could solve all of your problems—if only you had the right haircut, if only you found the right group of friends, if only you made a little more money, if only he noticed you, if only she loved you back, if only you could find the time, if only you were confident—which leaves you feeling perpetually on the cusp of a better life, hanging around the top of the slide waiting for one little push.

foreclearing n. the act of deliberately refusing to learn the scientific explanations of things out of fear that it’ll ruin the magic—turning

zielschmerz n. the dread of finally pursuing a lifelong dream, which requires you to put your true abilities out there to be tested on the open savannah, no longer protected inside the terrarium of hopes and delusions that you started up in kindergarten and kept sealed as long as you could. German Ziel, goal + Schmerz, pain. Pronounced “zeel-shmerts.”

Right from the beginning, each of us has to confront a certain fundamental paradox: in order to be anywhere, you have to be somewhere.

No matter where on Earth you happen to be standing, the horizon you see in the distance is only ever about three miles away from you, a bit less than five kilometers. Which means that at any given time, you’re barely more than an hour’s walk from a completely different world.

if someone were to ask you on your deathbed what it was like to live here on Earth, perhaps the only honest answer would be: “I don’t know. I passed through it once, but I’ve never really been there.”

liberosis n. the desire to care less about things; to figure out a way to relax your grip on your life and hold it loosely and playfully, keeping it in the air like a volleyball, with quick and fleeting interventions, bouncing freely in the hands of trusted friends, always in play.

trueholding n. the act of trying to keep an amazing discovery to yourself, fighting the urge to shout about it from the rooftops because you’re afraid that it’ll end up being diluted and distorted, and will no longer have been created just for you. In the Tolkien legendarium, Trahald is the true name of Sméagol (Gollum), a creature who spent centuries hiding in dark wet caves, enthralled in jealous worship of his precious enchanted ring.

Dutch puntstuk, railway frog, which is the part of a railway switch where two rails intersect. Sometimes you can feel a little kick when your train passes over it, as if the world is trying to signal you’re missing a turn, having traveled too far on the same old track.

tarrion n. an odd interval of blankness you feel after something big happens to you but before you feel the resulting emotional reaction—stunned by a sudden loss, a stroke of luck, or an unexpected visitor—like those tension-filled seconds between a flash of lightning and the thunderclap that follows, which gives you a hint of how near you are to the coming storm. From tarry, to be late to react, or linger in expectation + carry on. Pronounced “tar-ee-uhn.”

KUDOCLASM a cascading crisis of self-doubt A warning to Icarus, as he stretched out his wings for the first time: “Don’t fly too near the sun, nor the sea. One will melt the wax, and the other weigh down the feathers. Keep to the middle course.”

You may love your partner but start to doubt how well that comes across. You may love your job but begin to question if it’s worth all the time it has cost you, knowing how easily your role could be refilled, your legacy tossed in a box. You wonder if you’re really any good at it, or have been ignoring warning signs that it’s time to try something else.

Your task is not to be flawless. Your task is to fly.

When you were born, you could have been anybody. So quick and malleable, your parents could look at your face and see a future president. They tried to mold you as you grew, but they could only work with what they had. And when their tools stopped working, they gradually handed them off to you, asking, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

amoransia n. the melodramatic thrill of unrequited love; the longing to pine for someone you can never have, wallowing in devotion to some impossible person who could give your life meaning by their very absence. Portuguese amor, love + ânsia, craving. Pronounced “ah-moh-ran-see-uh.”

lackout n. the sudden awareness that you’re finally over someone, noticing that the same voice that once triggered a cocktail of emotions now evokes nothing at all—as if your brain had returned the last box of their things and your heart had quietly changed its locks. From lack, missing something + blackout, when a spark abruptly goes away.

ludiosis n. the sense that you’re just making it up as you go along—knowing that if someone asked why you do most things, you couldn’t really come up with a convincing explanation.

xeno n. the smallest measurable unit of human connection, typically exchanged between passing strangers—a warm smile, a sympathetic nod, a shared laugh about some odd coincidence—moments that are fleeting and random but still contain powerful emotional nutrients that can alleviate the symptoms of feeling alone. Ancient Greek ξένος (xénos), alien, stranger. Pronounced “zee-noh.”

that a three-day fever hits you harder than climate change.

scrough v. intr. to mindlessly perform a tedious task that nobody will ever notice, required by a bureaucracy that nobody fully owns, in pursuit of outcomes that nobody really wants. From scrow, to work hard + scroff, useless bits of leftover material + cog, a tiny forgettable element in a complicated machine. Pronounced “skrawg.”

fygophobia n. the fear that your connections with people will keep dwindling as you get older; that one by one, you’ll all go flying off the merry-go-round in wildly different directions, sailing through various classes and jobs and interests, ultimately landing in far-flung neighborhoods where you’ll hunker down with your families plus a handful of confidants you see a few times a year, perpetually reassuring each other, “We should keep in touch.” Greek φύγω (fýgo), I leave + -φοβία (-phobía), fear. Compare the Greek φυγόκεντρος (fygókentros), centrifuge. Pronounced “fahy-goh-foh-bee-uh.”

star-stuck adj. exhausted by endless reviews and secondhand impressions; itching to stumble blindly into the world and make some mistakes, to wander around opening doors to restaurants and performances and movies you’ve never heard of, without the slightest idea of what to expect.

gaudia civis n. a humble pulse of gratification you feel when acting as a citizen—serving on a jury, standing in line at a polling place, taking part in a debate at a town meeting—where you can actually feel the gears of democracy turning ever so slightly, because you actually had a hand in it. Latin gaudia, joys + civis, citizen. Pronounced “gou-dee-uh siv-is.”

aulasy n. the sadness that there’s no way to convey a powerful memory to people who weren’t there at the time—driving past your childhood home to show it to a friend, or pointing at a picture of a loved one you lost, only to realize that to them it’s just another house, just another face. A contraction of auld lang syne, which is Scots for “times long past”—fragments of which are still present in aulasy, but the meaning has been lost. Pronounced “awl-uh-see.”

enterhood n. the set of living people who have known you all your life, all the way back to your infancy, before you had a clue who you were; a group that slowly shrinks as you get older, until the point when all of your closest confidants have only ever seen an abridged version of you, having joined your story somewhere in the middle of things, just as you did.

fellchaser n. a long-forgotten mistake from your past that could reappear at any time and rip your life apart, like a boomerang you tossed away years ago that’s only just now looping back around, which you’d have no idea how to handle because you have no idea what it is. From fell, to cause to fall by delivering a blow + molechaser, a low swooping throw of a boomerang.

yeorie n. a certain scent that has the power to sweep you back to childhood—the acrid funk of bug spray, the earthy sweetness of dead leaves on wet asphalt, the rebellious twang of gasoline fumes in the summer heat. From yewthor, a pungent scent + yewre, water-bearer. Pronounced “yoh-ree.”

MORII the desire to capture a fleeting experience Strange how strong the instinct is: to see something incredible and reach for a camera. As if you’re trying to lend it some credibility. To prove that it’s real. That I was here.

etterath n. the feeling of emptiness after a long and arduous process is finally complete—having finished school, recovered from surgery, or gone home at the end of your wedding—which leaves you relieved that it’s over but missing the stress that organized your life into a mission. Norwegian etter, after + råtne, decay. Pronounced “et-er-rath.”

walloway n. a sense memory you’ve mulled over so thoroughly that it’s become totally drained of emotion—having replayed an old song to death, over-binged a favorite sitcom, or spent too much time in the old neighborhood—inadvertently depleting a wellspring of nostalgia by watering it down with newer connotations.

TICHLOCH the anxiety of never knowing how much time you have left

DÈS VU the awareness that this moment will become a memory

You are two people, separated by an ocean of time. Part of you bursting to talk about what you saw. Part of you longing to tell you what it all means.

inerrata n. a kind of mistake you wouldn’t take back even if you could; the reluctance to disown a broken relationship or agonizing experience that has since become part of who you are, and trying to disown it would mean you’re trying to live some other life. Latin in-, not + errata, mistakes in a printed work. Pronounced “in-eh-rah-tuh.”

OLĒKA the awareness of how few days are memorable

amentalio n. the sadness of realizing that you’re already forgetting sense memories of the departed—already struggling to hear their voice, picture the exact shade of their eyes, or call to mind the quirky little gestures you once knew by heart.

énouement n. the bittersweetness of having arrived here in the future, finally learning the answers to how things turned out but being unable to tell your past self.

YU YI the longing to feel things intensely again

Such a beautiful expression ...

“Ist es nicht schön?” “Is it not beautiful?”

winnewaw n. an unexpected burst of good news that only makes you skeptical, believing that every sudden rise in your fortunes must inevitably be accompanied by an impending fall, which leaves you feeling uneasy at the end of a really good day, waiting around for the punch line.

arroia n. the wish that you could’ve enjoyed a dry run of your life—muddling through once quickly, then going back to do it all over again, this time for real. Spanish arroyo, a dried-up streambed waiting for a storm, literally a “dry run.” Pronounced “uh-roi-uh.”

As he was dying at age forty, Franz Kafka instructed his friend Max Brod to burn all his literary works upon his death, but Brod famously defied the request and published them to worldwide acclaim. At the time, Max Brod had been a household name, a celebrated author whose first novel was hailed as a masterpiece. Meanwhile, Kafka had spent his life walking the streets of Prague as a complete unknown, and died without ever suspecting that his hometown would soon become synonymous with his name. The world had been unequivocal in its judgment of the two writers, but posterity soon overturned the verdict.

We should count ourselves lucky that we were born so early in history—back when the machine was only just starting to boot up, when it was still possible to go outside and savor a moment of in-betweenness. When you could still get out there in the early morning, pulling a canoe through the reeds on the edge of the lake, dropping a line, and waiting for a nibble in silence.

sonder—the awareness that everyone around you is the main character of their own story—and