The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

by John Koenig

trumspringa n. the longing to wander off your career track in pursuit of a simple life—tending a small farm in a forest clearing, keeping a lighthouse on a secluded atoll, or becoming a shepherd in the mountains—which is just the kind of hypnotic diversion that allows your thoughts to make a break for it and wander back to their cubicles in the city.

kairosclerosis n. the moment you look around and realize that you’re currently happy—consciously trying to savor the feeling—which prompts your intellect to identify it, pick it apart, and put it in context, where it will slowly dissolve until it’s little more than an aftertaste.

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.

the Til n. the reservoir of all possible opportunities still available to you at this point in your life—all the countries you still have the energy to explore, the careers you still have the courage to pursue, the skills you still have time to develop, the relationships you still have the heart to make—like a pail of water you carry around in your head, which starts off feeling like an overwhelming burden but steadily draws down as you get older, splashing gallons over the side every time you take a step. From the till, a shopkeeper’s register filled with unspent change + until.

licotic adj. anxiously excited to introduce a friend to something you think is amazing—a classic album, a favorite restaurant, a TV show they’re lucky enough to watch for the very first time—which prompts you to continually poll their face waiting for the inevitable rush of awe, only to cringe when you discover all the work’s flaws shining through for the very first time. Old English licode, it pleased [you] + psychotic. Pronounced “lahy-kot-ic.”

exulansis n. the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it—whether through envy or pity or mere foreignness—which allows it to drift away from the rest of your story, until it feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog, no longer even looking for a place to land. Latin exulans, exile, wanderer, derived from the Latin name of the Wandering Albatross, diomedea exulans, who spend most of their life in flight, rarely landing, going hours without even flapping their wings. The albatross is a symbol of good luck, a curse, and a burden, and sometimes all three at once. Pronounced “ek-suh-lan-sis.”

She’ll try to blink the colors out of her eyes, but she’ll never be able to forget that there’s an entire dimension hidden inside things.

If Oz is a dream that never leaves you, so is Kansas. Life is not a flat and barren outpost, and it’s not a bangarang wonderland either. Maybe they’re just two different ways of looking at some ambiguous middle place, where she actually lives. It’s just a question of perspective, which can shift wildly depending on how she chooses to see it.

Do you plunge into a Technicolor riot of what might be, harsh and delirious and confusing? Or do you accept the humble beauty of ordinary life, where nothing ever changes, and everything is simple? Which will it be—Kansas or Oz? Life as it is or life as it could be?

Spare a thought for poor Dorothy, the orphan girl of Kansas, who dreams in color but lives in black and white.

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.

To feel the lushness and harshness of the wild, the clarity of eating and killing and growing stronger.

Our domesticated animals are mere caricatures of their wild ancestors. The family dog is just another piece of technology, designed and bred to serve a purpose. And you too are a domesticated animal, shrouded in synthetic fibers and synthetic thoughts.

We need to believe in the fall from Eden. We need to believe that we corrupted a place that had always been pure. But maybe all along, we had the story backward. Maybe we were the ones who cast out the jungle, who stripped it naked, and tried to teach it good and evil, breaking it down into pieces that served a purpose. We couldn’t handle the true state of nature—the overwhelming chaos, the corruption and the mutations, the fluidity of interconnections and the fecundity of the soil, where nothing is pure, where life and death are intertwined. So we decided to turn away, barricading ourselves in a walled garden. Maybe we were wrong from the start. In the beginning, there was everything.

It’s a delirious madness built into all living things. Right from the beginning, each of us has to confront a certain fundamental paradox: in order to be anywhere, you have to be somewhere. You have to confine yourself to just one body, inhabiting only one place at a time. This is the only perspective you’ll ever have, the only stretch of history you’ll ever get to see for yourself. Even though you may be lucky enough to serve as a witness to the universe, you’re cursed by the knowledge that you can only scratch the surface of it.

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.

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.

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.

keep n. an important part of your personality that others seldom see—a secret flaw, a hidden talent, trauma that never comes up, dreams you never mention—that remains a vital part of who you are even if nobody knows it’s there, like the sprawling archives in the attics of museums, packed with works far too priceless to risk being displayed for the public.

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 you this far are no longer working—that it’s not enough anymore to be cute or nice or righteous or tough—as if you’ve now entered a new phase in the game of life, moving forward with a completely different token.

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. From the phrase “Well, I… um…,” which typically precedes such an excuse. Pronounced “wel-ee-uhm.”

KUDOCLASM a cascading crisis of self-doubt

Sometimes you have no idea what to think about yourself, feeling somehow better than everybody but not good enough for anybody. Which is actually when you’re at your most precarious, feeling overdue for a correction. Something throws you off-balance, and you slip into a spiraling self-doubt—picking apart your wings, trying to figure out if your feathers are still attached.

Maybe your self-mythology is no different than any other mythology. It’s a story that changes in the telling, evolving over time. Whatever resonates will stay, and what doesn’t will fall away. To pick away at the literal truth is to miss the point of it, miss the joy of it. So go ahead and build your myth. Try to tell a good story about yourself that captures something true, whether or not the facts agree. Keep to the middle course. Steal bits of wax and feathers discarded by other, better fliers. Let the sun rise and fall. Let the waves pound themselves to mist, again and again. Your task is not to be flawless. Your task is to fly. Ancient Greek κῦδος (kûdos), glory, praise + κλάω, (kláō), to break down. Pronounced “koo-doh-klaz-uhm.”

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.”

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. Latin pro-, forward + reluctans, resisting. Pronounced “proh-luhk-tuhns.”

viadne n. alienation from the crude machinery of your own body—like riding a ramshackle parade float that’s run by gremlins you can’t see, who toil away in darkness, pulling strings to move your limbs, kneading your guts and working the bellows, trying to further your modern agenda using nothing more advanced than a sackful of bones and splanchnic ganglia, zapped by sparks in primordial ooze. Latin via, by way of + viande, meat. Pronounced “vee-ad-nee.”

loss of backing n. an abrupt collapse of trust in yourself—having abandoned a resolution, surrendered to your demons, or squandered an opportunity you swore you’d take seriously this time—which resets your expectations and makes it that much harder to guarantee that your word is worth anything, even to yourself.

the meantime n. the moment of realization that your quintessential future self isn’t ever going to show up, which forces the role to fall upon the understudy, the gawky kid who spent years mouthing their lines in the wings before being shoved into the glare of your life, which is already well into its second act.

ALAZIA the fear that you’re no longer able to change

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.

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. It makes you wish you could restore your self-image back to its essence. Painstakingly washing away the remnants of all the times you tried to be someone you’re not. Cleaning up areas where people tried to paint over you or ripped away qualities they didn’t like. Stripping down your identity, layer by layer, through all your habits and distractions and cultural programming, so you can finally reveal your true colors for all to see. But the more you look into who you are in isolation, the more your identity dissolves into a noise of random impulses—dust on a blank canvas.

povism n. the frustration of being stuck inside your own head, unable to see your face or read your body language in context, only ever guessing how you might be coming across—which makes you think of yourself as a detached observer squinting out at a lushly painted landscape, though to everyone else you seem woven right into the canvas.

whether the eyes are the windows of the soul or the doors of perception, it doesn’t really matter: you’re still standing on the outside of the house.

ochisia n. the fear that the role you once occupied in someone’s life could be refilled without a second thought, which makes you wish that every breakup would include a severance package, a non-compete clause, and some sort of romantic placement program. Greek όχι πια (óchi pia), not anymore. Pronounced “oh-kee-zee-uh.”

nachlophobia n. the fear that your deepest connections with people are ultimately pretty shallow, that although your relationships feel congenial in the moment, an audit of your life would reveal a smattering of low-interest holdings and uninvested windfall profits, which will indicate you were never really at risk of joy, sacrifice, or loss.

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—feeling vaguely disappointed that they’re unwilling to spend the time it takes getting to know the real you. Ancient Greek εἴδωλον (eídōlon), a phantom image of an ideal form. Pronounced “duh-loh-nee-uh.”

watashiato n. curiosity about the impact you’ve had on the lives of the people you know, wondering which of your harmless actions or long-forgotten words might have altered the plot of their stories in ways you’ll never get to see. Japanese 私 (watashi), I + 足跡 (ashiato), footprint. Pronounced “wah-tah-shee-ah-toh.”

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.”

immerensis n. the maddening inability to understand the reasons why someone loves you—almost as if you’re selling them a used car that you know has a ton of problems and requires daily tinkering just to get it to run normally, but no matter how much you try to warn them, they seem all the more eager to hop behind the wheel and see where this puppy can go. Latin immerens, undeserving. Pronounced “ih-muhr-en-sis.”

falesia n. the disquieting awareness that someone’s importance to you and your importance to them may not necessarily match—that your best friend might only think of you as a buddy, that someone you barely know might consider you a mentor, that someone you love unconditionally might have one or two conditions. Portuguese falésia, cliff. A cliff is a dizzying meeting point between high ground and low ground. Pronounced “fuh-lee-zhuh.”

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.

rivener n. a chilling hint of distance that creeps slowly into a relationship—beginning to notice them laugh a little less, look away a little more, explain away their mood like it’s no longer your business—as if you’re watching them fall out of love right in front of you, gradually and painfully, like a hole in the radiator that leaves your house a little colder with every passing day, whose only clue is a slow, unnerving drip—drip—drip. Middle English riven, to rend, to cleave apart. Pronounced “riv-uh-ner.”

There are so many backstories that people keep to themselves, so many back channels you don’t even know exist. Random clusters of friends might be carrying on parallel conversations in another group text, or meeting up regularly at events you’re not invited to. People know far more about you than you think, holding on to secrets and rumors they use to inform your character but never mention in your presence.

on tenderhooks adj. feeling the primal satisfaction of being needed by someone, which makes you feel that much more rooted to the world, even if the roots belong to someone else. From tender, emotionally raw + hooks, a tool for binding one thing to another. Compare on tenterhooks, which is a state of anxious suspense.

soufrise n. the maddening thrill of an ambiguous flirtation, which quivers in tension halfway between platonic and romantic—maybe, but no, but maybe—leaving you guessing what’s going on inside their chest, forced to assume that at any given moment their attraction is both alive and dead at the same time. French sourire, smile + frisson, a shiver of chill or excitement. Pronounced “soo-freez.”

You take in the details of her face and try to imagine what you’d think if you didn’t know her name, if she were just some stranger on the street. It makes her seem ennobled in a way—a mortal being with a heartbeat, infused with a pathos and humor and a vulnerability you’ve never noticed before. For a moment you’re able to strip away the baggage of what she is to you and the roles she plays in your life. It’s easy to forget that she doesn’t just exist in the contexts you tend to see her in, not just one half of a couple, or one ingredient in a broader social soup, but steeped in her own unique vibe wherever she goes. Around her are a menagerie of relationships with hundreds of people you’ll never meet.

Every word she speaks is thrumming with emotional resonances you can’t hear, informed by a context she’ll never be able to explain. She has desires too raw to defend, fears she can’t bear to think about. And all of this is happening all the time, invisibly, right there in front of you.

drisson n. an unexpected twinge of attraction for a friend; a flutter of desire you don’t necessarily want to feel, that didn’t even seem possible up until this point, when it suddenly becomes a problem you have to deal with.