The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

by John Koenig

We all know that there’s no such thing as a tropical paradise, or hell on Earth. That faraway people are neither angelic monks nor snarling grotesques, that their lives are just as messy and troubled and mundane as our own. But like the first explorers, we can’t help ourselves from sketching monsters in the blank spaces on the map. Perhaps we find their presence comforting. They guard the edges of the abyss, and force us to look away, so we can live comfortably in the known world, at least for a little while.

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 ...

In philosophy, monism is the belief that a wide variety of things can be explained in terms of a single reality, substance, or source. Onism is a kind of monism—your life is indeed limited to a single reality by virtue of being restricted to a single body—but something is clearly missing. Pronounced “oh-niz-uhm.”

This is what I believe: “That I am I.” “That my soul is a dark forest.” “That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest.” “That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back.” “That I must have the courage to let them come and go.” “That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women.” There is my creed. —D. H. LAWRENCE, Studies in Classic American Literature

heartspur n. an unexpected surge of emotion in response to a seemingly innocuous trigger—the distinctive squeal of a rusty fence, a key change in an old pop song, the hint of a certain perfume—which feels all the more intense because you can’t quite pin it down. From heart + spur, a spike on a heel that urges a horse to move forward.

vaucasy n. the fear that you’re little more than a product of your circumstances, that for all the thought you put into shaping your beliefs and behaviors and relationships, you’re essentially a dog being trained by whatever stimuli you happen to encounter—reflexively drawn to whoever gives you reliable hits of pleasure, skeptical of ideas that make you feel powerless.

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.

emodox n. someone whose mood is perpetually out of sync with everyone else around them, prone to feelings of naptime panic, heart-to-heart snark, or dance club pensiveness. From emotional + dox, not conforming to expected norms. Pronounced “ee-moh-doks.”

nighthawk n. a recurring thought that only seems to strike you late at night—an overdue task, a nagging guilt, a looming future—which you sometimes manage to forget for weeks, only to feel it land on your shoulder once again, quietly building a nest.

the giltwrights n. the imaginary committee of elders that keeps a running log of all your mistakes, steadily building their case that you’re secretly a fraud, a coward, a doofus, and a douche—who would’ve revoked your good fortune years ago had they not been hampered by their own bitter squabblings over proper grammar and spelling. Old English gilt, awareness of wrongdoing + wrought, shaped with hammers. Pronounced “the gilt-rahyts.”

nementia n. the post-distraction effort to recall the reason you’re feeling particularly anxious or angry or excited, trying to retrace your sequence of thoughts like a kid gathering the string of a downed kite.

the whipgraft delusion n. the phenomenon in which you catch your reflection in the mirror and get the sense that you’re peering into the eyes of a stranger, as if you’re looking at a police sketch of your own face aged forward twenty years, which would imply that the real you is out there somewhere, wandering the streets of your old neighborhood, still at large. In horticulture, whip grafting is when you fuse the top of one plant to the bottom of another. In psychology, the Capgras delusion is the conviction that a loved one has been replaced by an identical-looking imposter.

deep gut n. a resurgent emotion that you hadn’t felt in years, that you might have forgotten about completely if your emotional playlist hadn’t accidentally been left on shuffle.

KOINOPHOBIA the fear that you’ve lived an ordinary life

Throw a little party. Feel a little boredom. Have a little rebellion. There are so many of these token moments, that you could have sworn were supposed to represent something else, something bigger. You keep adding them all up, as if there were something you must’ve forgotten to count, some stash of glory that fell off the back of a truck. You may well adore the life you have for everything it is. You know it isn’t groundbreaking, but you wouldn’t change a thing. Still, you can’t shake the feeling that something is missing. Maybe the trouble is, you were never really “in it” to begin with. Maybe when you first started building the life you wanted, you put so much thought into what might happen that you started losing sight of what was happening. As if you had known all along that this wasn’t the world you expected. A world so low and common that you tried to keep your distance, so you began floating somewhere above it, where nobody else could look down on this life you built. That is, nobody else but you. Ancient Greek κοινός (koinós), common, ordinary, stripped of specialness + -φοβία (-phobía), fear. Pronounced “key-noh-foh-bee-uh.”

Maybe the trouble is, you were never really “in it” to begin with. Maybe when you first started building the life you wanted, you put so much thought into what might happen that you started losing sight of what was happening.

Ancient Greek κοινός (koinós), common, ordinary, stripped of specialness + -φοβία (-phobía), fear. Pronounced “key-noh-foh-bee-uh.”

agnosthesia n. the state of not knowing how you really feel about something, which forces you to sift through clues hidden in your own behavior, as if you were some other person—noticing a twist of acid in your voice, an obscene amount of effort you put into something trifling, or an inexplicable weight on your shoulders that makes it difficult to get out of bed. Ancient Greek ἄγνωστος (ágnōstos), not knowing + διάθεσις (diáthesis), condition, mood. Pronounced “ag-nos-thee-zhuh.”

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.

punt kick n. a quiet jolt of recognition that it’s time to become a better version of yourself, sensing that all the strategies that brought ...

fool’s guilt n. a pulse of shame you feel even though you’ve done nothing wrong—passing a police car while under the speed limit, being carded after legally ordering a drink, or exiting a store without buying anything.

endzoned n. the hollow feeling of having gotten exactly what you thought you wanted, only to learn that it didn’t make you happy.

candling v. intr. the habit of taking stock of your life on the occasion of your birthday—letting it serve as a kind of internal referendum on all your goals and qualities and relationships and accomplishments so far—which makes you want to dress just a little nicer that day, as if you’re standing before a parole board that convenes once a year to adjudicate your release from childhood.

altschmerz n. a sense of weariness with the same old problems that you’ve always had, the same boring issues and anxieties you’ve been gnawing on for decades, which makes you want to spit them out and dig up some fresher pain you might have buried in your mental backyard.

lyssamania n. the irrational fear that someone you know is angry at you, that as soon as you wander into the room, you’ll be faced with a barrage of questions that gradually escalates into a frenzy of outrage, for reasons that you don’t understand.

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.

wellium n. an excuse you come up with to rationalize a disappointing outcome—telling yourself you weren’t in the mood for that sold-out show anyway, that your safety school is actually a better fit, that your dream job might have been a bit too stressful.

KUDOCLASM a cascading crisis of self-doubt

Whatever resonates will stay, and what doesn’t will fall away.

maugry adj. afraid that you’ve been mentally deranged all your life and everybody around you knows, but none of them mention it to you directly because they feel it’s not their place. From maunder, to mumble indistinctly + maugre, in spite of, notwithstanding. Pronounced “maw-gree.”

typifice n. a caricature of yourself that went out of date years ago, though nobody around you seems to have noticed.

proluctance n. the paradoxical urge to avoid doing something you’ve been looking forward to—opening a decisive letter, meeting up with a friend who’s finally back in town, reading a new book from your favorite author—perpetually waiting around for the right state of mind, stretching out the bliss of anticipation as long as you can.

aesthosis n. the state of feeling trapped inside your own subjective tastes—not knowing why you find certain things beautiful or ugly, only that you do—wishing you could remove the sociopsychological lenses from your eyes so you could see the beauty in anything and be moved to tears by the smell of burning garbage, the aria of a screaming toddler, or a neon Elvis painted on black velvet.

loss of backing n. an abrupt collapse of trust in yourself—having

malotype n. a certain person who embodies all the things you like the least about yourself—a

leidenfreude n. a sense of paradoxical relief when something bad happens to you, which temporarily lowers your own expectations for yourself, transforming a faceless protagonist into something of an underdog, who’s that much easier to root for.

ALAZIA the fear that you’re no longer able to change When you were born, you could have been anybody. So quick and malleable,

There’s a certain art to becoming who you are. There’s no standard kit you can use to assemble yourself, swapping out parts as needed. Instead, it feels more like a kind of stretching, a teasing out at the edges, like a glassblower standing at the furnace.

Inevitably you got hit, and you got hurt. You prided yourself on how well you absorbed the blow, bouncing back as if nothing had happened. But the pain changed you, in little chips and cracks that might take you years to notice. Over time you learned how to position yourself in very specific ways, protecting the most vulnerable parts of your psyche, even as you knew they were still a crucial part of the real you. Gradually you became more and more reluctant to move from that position. Growing a little harder, a little more brittle.

Maybe it’s too late for you to change who you are. Or maybe you’re just entering a new phase, undergoing a change so profound that even your understanding of change is becoming unrecognizable. Maybe now is the time to stress-test your own assumptions about yourself, stripping away all the flourishes and ornaments that you don’t really need, honing yourself down to the core of who you are. And even if it’s true that you’re no longer flexible enough to be anybody, you might be getting strong enough to finally be yourself.

the wends n. the frustration that you’re not enjoying an experience as much as you should, which prompts you to try plugging in various thought combinations to trigger anything more intense than roaring static, as if your heart had been inadvertently demagnetized by a surge of expectations.

apolytus n. the moment you realize you are changing as a person, finally outgrowing your old problems like a reptile shedding its skin, already able to twist back around and chuckle at this weirdly antiquated caricature of yourself that will soon come off completely.

mcfeely adj. inexplicably moved by predictable and well-worn sentiments, even if they’re trite or obvious or being broadcast blindly to the masses. From the middle name of Mr. Fred McFeely Rogers. You deserve to be happy. Your feelings matter. You are loved. You are enough.

flichtish adj. nervously aware how much of your self-image is based on untested assumptions about yourself—only ever guessing how you’d react to a violent threat, a sudden windfall, a huge responsibility, or being told to do something you knew was wrong.

insoucism n. the inability to decide how much sympathy your situation really deserves, knowing that so many people have it far worse and others far better, that some people would need years of therapy to overcome what you have, while others would barely think to mention it in their diary that day.

ANOSCETIA the anxiety of not knowing “the real you”

Everyone around you seems to have such a vibrant color of personality. It shines through vividly in everything they do, from the shoes they wear, to the groceries they put in their cart, to the precise wording of a text wishing you a happy birthday. You’d think it would all seem generic, but somehow every detail is quintessentially them.

Meanwhile, you shadow yourself twenty-four hours a day, in a variety of different situations. In what context are you most like yourself? Are you more or less authentic when you lose yourself in your work, pour your heart out to a friend, or are alone, just trying to clear your mind? Even then, you know firsthand how messy your moods can be, how scattered and contradictory your thought process, how many arbitrary urges you could obey at any given time. Whenever you stumble on a new situation, it’s hard to predict which version of you is going to emerge, or which opinion is going to tumble out from the gumball machine in your head—knowing it’ll carry the sheen of truth, as if all your other thoughts didn’t exist.

sayfish n. a sincere emotion that seems to wither into mush as soon as you try to put it into words—like reeling in a shimmering beast from the deep only to watch it wriggle limply on the line,

addleworth adj. unable to settle the question of whether you’re doing okay in life; feeling torn between conflicting value systems and moveable goalposts, which makes you long for someone to come along and score your progress in discrete and measurable units—points,