- acedia
- apathetic listlessness; depression without joy; uneasiness of the mind
- aevum
- a state between the timelessness of God and the temporal experience of material beings. also aeviternity and aeviternitas.
- alpenglow
- the rosy light of the setting or rising sun seen on high mountains.
- ambedo
- (latin) a kind of melancholic trance in which you become completely absorbed in vivid sensory details—raindrops skittering down a window, tall trees leaning in the wind, clouds of cream swirling in your coffee—which leads to a dawning awareness of the haunting fragility of life, a mood whose only known cure is the vuvuzela.
- anchorage
- the desire to hold on to time as it passes, like trying to keep your grip on a rock in the middle of a river, feeling the weight of the current against your chest while your elders float on downstream, calling over the roar of the rapids, “Just let go—it’s okay—let go.”
- anhedonia
- the inability to find pleasure in things usually enjoyable; a symptom of the depressive illness.
- antisciens
- people, "whose shadows are noon are cast in the opposite directions as the world".
- asterismos
- marking with stars; a word that gives weight or draws attention to the words that follow.
- atermoiements
- distractions or hesitations leading to procrastination.
- aubade
- a song greeting the dawn.
- aureate
- gilded, splendid.
- bel hevi
- lit. "belly heavy"; a tangible, sinking feeling often experienced in tandem with great sadness.
- b'shert
- lit. "destiny", the seeking of a person who will complement you, and whom you'll complement perfectly.
- boketto
- (japanese) the act of gazing vacantly into the distance without thinking.
- cafuné
- (portugese) the act of running your hands through your lover's hair.
- chimerical
- merely imaginary; fanciful.
- chrysalism
- the amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm, listening to waves of rain pattering against the roof like an argument upstairs, whose muffled words are unintelligible but whose crackling release of built-up tension you understand perfectly.
- conundrum
- a confusing and difficult problem or question.
- concrescence
- the coalescence or growing together of parts originally separate.
- confundere
- (latin) to confuse, to perplex.
- cynosure
- a focal point of admiration.
- delirium
- a state of excitement and mental confusion.
- drapetomania
- overwhelming urge to runaway.
- dysania
- the state of finding it hard to get out of bed in the morning.
- eshajori
- people meet, always part. the concept of the impermanence of all things, that every human relationship will end due to the transient nature of life.
- eclectic
- a person who derives ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources.
- elysium
- any place or state of perfect happiness.
- emmeleia
- (hungarian) concord, harmony.
- erlebnis
- an experience in which one feels most deeply, and in a sense, "lives through".
- euphonious
- pleasing; sweet in sound.
- forelsket
- (norwegian) the feeling you have right before falling in love.
- fidelis
- (latin) faithful.
- hanyou
- 汎用 [hahn-yoh’] a character who is a cross between a human and a supernatural being (youkai). hanyou are often the result of one human parent and one supernatural parent. in anime and manga, they are often depicted as outsiders, never fitting into the side of either humans nor youkai.
- hiraeth
- (welsh) a feeling of longing associated with displacement, but not necessarily displacement from one’s original home; an intense yearning to be somewhere you are not.
- ikigai
- (japanese) lit. "a reason for being"; passion, purpose for which one lives for.
- kaiho
- a hopeless longing; an involuntary solitude in which one feels incompleteness and yearns for something impossible or difficult to attain.
- kairosclerosis
- the moment you 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.
- kummerspeck
- (german) excess weight gained from emotional overeating; literally, grief bacon.
- lacuna
- a blank space. a missing part.
- lethobenthos
- the habit of forgetting how important someone is to you until you see them again in person, making you wish your day would begin with a “previously on” recap of your life’s various plot arcs, and end with “to be continued…” after those will-they-won’t-they cliffhanger episodes that air just before the show goes back into months of repeats.
- logastellus
- a person whose love of words is greater than their knowledge of words.
- luftschloss
- (german) an unrealistic dream.
- lypophrenia
- feeling of sadness seemingly without a cause.
- meraki
- (greek) doing something with soul, creativity, or love.
- metanoia
- the journey of changing one's heart, self or way of life.
- minutiae
- the small, precise details that makes one unique.
- moledro
- (italian) a feeling of resonant connection with an author or artist you’ll never meet, who may have lived centuries ago and thousands of miles away but can still get inside your head and leave behind morsels of their experience, like the little piles of stones left by hikers that mark a hidden path through unfamiliar territory.
- mono no aware
- (japanese) literally “the pathos of things”, also sometimes translated as “an empathy toward things”, or “a sensitivity to ephemera”. it is a term used to describe a state of awareness of the impermanence or transience of things, and the associated feeling of gentle sadness or wistfulness at their passing.
- morgenfrisk
- (danish) the feeling of being rested after a good night’s sleep.
- moxie
- vigour, verve, pep; courage and aggressiveness, nerve; skill, know-how.
- nemophilist
- haunter of the woods; one who loves the forest and its beauty and solitude.
- nepenthe
- (greek) something that can make you forget grief or suffering.
- noceur
- one who sleeps late or not at all.
- petrichor
- the pleasant smell that accompanies the first rain after a dry spell.
- querencia
- the place at which you can be your most authentic self.
- redamancy
- act of loving in return.
- saturnine
- (latin) sluggish in temperament; gloomy, taciturn.
- saudade
- (portugese) melancholic feeling of incompleteness, the absence of someone.
- sabsung
- (thai) when you’re bored or have had a long day, it’s the thing that brings you back to life or livens up your day; whatever it is that makes you happy to be alive.
- schadenfreude
- (german) pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others.
- sehnsucht
- the inconsolable longing in the heart for we know not what; a yearning for a far, familiar, non-earthly land one can identify as home.
- selcouth
- unfamiliar, rare, strange, yet marvelous.
- selectric
- in the mood to get struck by lightning, to stand in an open field and be singled out and drafted by the universe because of your innate potential to resolve a battle between faceless titans roaring in the sky, a task which doesn’t require you to write a cover letter.
- sileo
- I am silent, noiseless, quiet, make no sound; speak not, I am quiet. derivations silentio, silentium, silentus.
- solivagant
- wandering alone.
- sonder
- (fake word)the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.
- sturmfrei
- lit. stormfree; the freedom of not being watched by authority, being alone at a place and having the ability to do what you want.
- szerelem
- (hungarian) love.
- toska
- (russian) “no single word in English renders all the shades of toska. at its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. at less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. in particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. at the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.” -- Vladimir Nabokov
- torschlusspanik
- (german) the fear that time is running out.
- trumspringa
- the temptation to step off your career track and become a shepherd in the mountains, following your flock between pastures with a sheepdog and a rifle, watching storms at dusk from the doorway of a small cabin, 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.
- verstehen
- "meaningful understanding"; the concept of putting yourself in the shoes of others in order to understand them better and see things from their perspective.
- waldosia
- a condition characterized by scanning faces in a crowd looking for a specific person who would have no reason to be there, which is your brain’s way of checking to see whether they’re still in your life, subconsciously patting its emotional pockets before it leaves for the day.
- wabi-sabi
- (japanese) a way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.
- weltschmerz
- (german) depression or pain caused by the state of the world.
- yuugen
- (japanese) an awareness of the universe that triggers feelings too deep and mysterious for words.
- zielschmerz
- the exhilarating 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 created in kindergarten and kept sealed as long as you could, only to break in case of emergency.
- zugzwang
- (german) feeling pressured to make a strategic move.
may 27 2014 ∞
mar 30 2016 +
mar 30 2016 +