Top 10 Entries in the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

This list contains the top 10 words invented by the author (John Koenig) which refer to certain peculiar emotions/feelings that we experience but don't necessarily have a word for. He has listed so many of such words into a dictionary called "Dictionary of obscure sorrows". This is a list of top 10 entries in that dictionary. You can find more such words in their official website dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com.
The Top Ten
1 Zenosyne - The sensation that time keeps going faster

This is actually something we all can subconsciously relate with but never really speak about. Maybe it's because we have less stuff to do as kids and spend time doing relatively less things, or maybe it's because kids cannot comprehend having existed for a long time due to their limited frame of reference, either way this is a very real thing that we all feel but don't talk about

Relativity absolutely has no effect in our minds that time flies by fast whatsoever; it's our minds ourselves as we age when we experience and do a lot of things that shaped our lives.

2 Sonder - The realisation that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own

It's definitely intriguing to think about the fact that every other person leads 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. This is interesting since we all are conditioned to somewhat partially, at least think that the world revolves around us, but that's not wrong, since we aren't exactly in control of other peoples' lives, still it is interesting to think that every single person has a unique story in their lives, where they are the main character.

3 Socha - The hidden vulnerability of others

Socha refers to the optical illusion that's easy to fall for, even if you know the trick. The more distant you are from other people, the more invulnerable they appear.

You see yourself as you are, with your flaws just as clear as your successes, but you see most other people on their terms, only from the side they present to the world, stoic and confident. And at first glance they've got everything figured out, with everything set in stone, securely embedded in their community, wrapped up with their loved ones, their lives like a finished work of art.

But it's only just a trick of perspective: everyone else seems to be doing better than you, because you can't see the cracks from so far away. How insecure their footing, how malleable they really are. How many years of effort went into shaping their persona into something acceptable, how many other hands it took to build their lives, which are still only ever a work in progress.

It's the kind of basic human vulnerability that we'd all find familiar, but is still somehow surprising when we notice it in others. It's an open question why we have such public confidence, and such private doubts.

4 Lachesism - The desire to be struck by disaster

This word refers to the subconscious thoughts we get about surviving a plane crash, losing everything in a fire, to plunge over a waterfall—which would put a kink in the smooth arc of your life, and forge it into something hardened and flexible and sharp, not just a stiff prefabricated beam that barely covers the gap between one end of your life and the other.

This feeling arises when you're slightly yet constantly annoyed with your current situation and want some uncertainty in your life; it's as though you subconsciously wish that you would be struck by disaster in hopes that it would relieve you of your current problems, even though you know that it is not a realistic and practical solution to your problems.

5 Liberosis - The desire to care less about things and to loosen your grip on life

This mainly refers to the general dislike towards a highly algorithmic approach to life, when you get annoyed at seeing people trying so hard to get some seemingly insignificant stuff under control, you realise that instead of such a lifestyle, it's better to "loosen your grip on things" and be in position where you're mentally prepared for unplanned events, so that such an approach to life would improve your long term mental health stability, and might also lead you to have a more fruitful life where you have experienced and learned a lot of things.

6 Exulansis - The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it

When you are not able to talk to others about your experience since they aren't able to relate to it, it allows that particular experience to drift away from the rest of your life story, until the memory itself feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog, no longer even looking for a place to land, and you wonder whether such an event actually happened. This actually becomes a kind of a meta word as this particular feeling is the reason why the author made so many of these words, and he also chose to make this particular one as well.

7 Nighthawk - A recurring thought that seems to strike you late at night

This is a relatable feeling for most of us, it may refer to an overdue task, a nagging guilt, a looming and shapeless future—that circles high overhead during the day, that pecks at the back of your mind while you try to sleep, that you can successfully ignore for weeks, only to feel its presence hovering outside the window, waiting for you to finish having fun, while the unpleasant feeling gradually gets stronger every night.

8 Rigor Samsa - A complicated mechanism by which you happen to deal with your emotions in life

This noun refers to a kind of psychological exoskeleton that can protect you from pain and contain your anxieties, but always ends up cracking under high stress or hollowed out by time—and will keep growing back again and again, until you develop a more sophisticated emotional structure, held up by a strong and flexible spine, built less like a fortress than a cluster of treehouses.

9 Lalalalia - The method in which you react when you're caught talking to yourself
10 Heartworm - A relationship or friendship that you can't get out of your head

It refers to the feeling you experience when you recall your memories of a positive romantic/platonic encounter in the past; you thought it had faded long ago and by now you're supposed to be treating it like an insignificant encounter in the past but it is still somehow alive and unfinished, like an abandoned campsite whose smoldering embers still have the power to start a forest fire.

It still feels fresh and it somewhat bothers you that you left the experience unfinished

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