EMOTIONS YOU NEVER KNEW YOU HAD

Author John Koenig has written a book called “The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.” It’s a collection of words and expressions – some from other cultures, some not – describing feelings you never knew there was a name for. For example:
– Sonder: The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own.
– Opia: The ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable.
– Kuebiko: The exhaustion that comes from consuming or seeing too much violence in the world and really questioning your own conception of the world. (* This actually started with the invventionof CNN.)
– Nodus Tollens: The idea that our own lives aren’t playing out the way we thought they would.
– Monachopsis: The feeling where you’re realizing “Hey I don’t fit into this environment right now, and I feel maybe a little bit awkward.”
– Rückkehrunruhe: How you feel after getting home from vacation and realizing that the memories from the trip are already starting to fade. (* As in “Oh, rückkehrunruhe, I should have taken more selfies.”)
– Mauerbauertraurigkeit: The inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends whose company you generally enjoy. (* And doesn’t it seem right that this is a German word?)
– Anecdoche: When people are having conversations but not listening to each other, just talking around or over each other. (* So, like any episode of The View.)
– Liberosis: Being able to step back from your life and reassess the things that are weighing on your mind, so that you have a sense of proportionality.
– Ellipsism: The feeling you have when you come to terms with the idea that you’re not going to be around forever.
– Exulansis: When you feel it’s useless to explain your worries because you think people just won’t be able to understand.
– Jouska: Replaying a conversation over and over in your head and thought about all of the possible ways it could have gone.
* This bit could have jouskaed better.
* One sorrow that’s not so obscure: The feeling that you wasted your money after buying a copy of “The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.”