aponemia, from an-, against + echoes. pronounced “an-uh-koh-sis.”.

• n. the peculiar quality of never having chosen to be born, which is shared by everyone else around you; the curious awareness that even though earthly life might be the most exciting party in the universe, somehow everyone in attendance had been dragged here by a friend or stumbled in by accident.

anthrodynia, ancient greek ἄνθρωπος (ánthrōpos), humanity + ὀδύνη (odúnē), sorrow, anguish, pain. pronounced “an-thruh-din-ee-uh.”

• n. a state of exhaustion with how cruel people can be, freely undercutting each other in ways that seem petty and gratuitous—which can sometimes trigger a countervailing sense of gratitude for things that are kind, sincere, forgiving, or unabashedly joyful.

eigenschauung, german eigen, inherent + anschauung, view. compare weltanschauung, “worldview.” your weltanschauung is how you see the world; your eigenschauung is a reflection of how the world sees you. pronounced “ahy-guhn-shou-oong.”

• n. the degree to which your view of the world is warped by your own presence in it, whether you’re a stunning beauty who assumes all strangers are chatty, a bully who thinks the world is perpetually at war, or a quivering leaf who walks around in an artificial cloud of deference; the awareness that although you’d like to think you perceive things cleanly and objectively, you’ve never felt the vibe of a room that doesn’t happen to have you in it.

ghough, onomatopoeic to the sound of a devouring maw. pronounced “hawkh,” with air drawn sharply inward through the mouth..

• n. a hollow place in your psyche that can never be filled; a bottomless hunger for more food, more praise, more attention, more affection, more joy, more sex, more money, more hours of sunshine, more years of your life; a state of panic that everything good will be taken from you too early, which makes you want to swallow the world before it ends up swallowing you.