On the heels of seeing Arrival, a quietly stunning sci-fi drama that highlights the beauty and importance of language/communication, I’m thinking a lot about words and how they shape both my experiences and my understanding of those experiences. The movie (like the short story it’s based on) explores the concept of linguistic relativity, which hypothesizes that the language we speak can affect and change the way we think and perceive life.
More and more in my life, I find that certain feelings and moments that I know cannot possibly be unique only to me are missing specific descriptors. I’m a fan of having words for things. Language is a beautiful thing. It not only facilitates communication, but allows us to better understand ourselves.
I’m a total a sucker for collections of rare words. Terms like petrichor, dysania, and scurryfunge give us clear, colorful language for life’s specific, subtle moments. There are also some pretty spectacular parodies of this trend.
Naturally, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, wherein author John Koenig creates terms for previously nameless emotions, feels like it was made for me. So many of his entries ring acutely true, such as nementia, moledro, ambedo, and Zielschmerz, which are all vivid in a way that’s both comforting and quietly haunting.
The following is a list of feelings I desperately want words for, but as far as I know, none of them exist. If you happen to know that a word—in any language—does exist to describe one of the feelings I’ve described here, I’d love to hear it. (Or, perhaps we can invent them together?)
1) Bafflement that time seems to pass more rapidly than it should, as though your life is stuck on fast-forward
Similar to adomania, this is an awareness of the absurdity of the quickness with which time passes, but on a personal scale. How is it already November? How is it already Thursday? How is it already time for another dentist appointment? How is my 30th birthday less than a year away? How is everything always happening so fast?
Inherent in this feeling is the awareness that the present is fleeting. “Right now” is gone as soon as you think about it. In college, I used to lament that I was “always waiting for the weekend, and then when it arrived, it was already Monday again,” which may have gotten on someone’s nerves once or twice. Now that I’m older—as I’m closing in on 30, what the fuck?—this feeling seems to be in the back of my mind all the time. Instead of “always waiting for the weekend,” it’s more like, “I’m always waiting for summer and then it’s fall again.” Years feel shorter and shorter. Traveling through time is weird.
2) The feeling that your life is taking place “in the past”
This feeling might seem like a direct contradiction to the previous one, but they’re actually unrelated. This is the feeling that you’re living in an unadvanced/primitive time, coupled with a desperate curiosity to know what the future will hold for people and society centuries and millennia in the future. Consider how a time-traveler from the year 3016 might react to the limitations of the technology (or, gee, the world leaders) we have today, and you’ll start to scratch the surface of this feeling. Next, contrast that with a time-traveler from 7016.
I get this feeling from small moments, like that bullshit where you try to open an email before the page is fully loaded and it jerks and makes you click the wrong one. I hope future generations never know that frustration. But, more seriously, it’s easy to get this feeling from the state of society today. We’re still shaming people for their genetics, their country of origin, and/or whom they fall in love with, for fuck’s sake. Humanity has so far to go.
I never understand when people say they wish they lived in a past decade. Why would you want to go backward? Personally, I would like to live in the age where no disease is incurable, no one goes without food and shelter, and annoyances like mosquito bites and lost wi-fi connections are so ancient as to seem absurd—the same way many of us today feel about imagining a time with no electricity or stretchy fabrics. I want to see humans explore other planets. I want to see how society evolves. Thinking about these things makes me feel like I’m living in a stone age (which does bring upon occasional ellipsism). This feeling is generally balanced out by those “what a time to be alive” moments, where I appreciate the comforts of modern technology.
3) Considering yourself as a background character in someone else’s life
This would be the opposite of “sonder,” which is the realization that every passerby has a life just as colorful and detailed as your own. The feeling I’m describing is those moments where you’re no more than an extra in a stranger’s significant moment. I feel this way when I’m eating at a restaurant and another table is having a birthday party. Not only do those people all have rich lives and dreams and buttholes, but from their point of view, I may as well not exist (unless I end up sneezing in the background of one of their photos or something). This feeling is not inherently negative—it’s nice to acknowledge, from time to time, that we’re all just people living our lives in the best way we can.
4) Acknowledgement that you will likely forget a moment or situation ever occurred
I’m obsessed with the concept of liminality, which applies to the odd feeling of being “in between” significant moments. This feeling is similar, referring to the strange realization that whatever you’re doing, seeing, or learning at the present moment will not be committed to memory. These are usually innocuous or boring moments, like stopping for gas or tying your shoe. In more interesting moments, though, such as hearing a great joke or coming up with a sudden idea, this feeling may prompt you to think, “I should write this down,” only to quickly forget that thought, as well.
5) Nostalgia for a special location or specific place
This is different from regular nostalgia or wanderlust. I want a word that describes the feeling of missing a certain city, building, or room that has a lot of meaning to you. If you’re like me, you might even mentally place yourself there, recalling every detail possible.
I feel this way a lot about the house I grew up in. I have an odd sadness about never being able to return to my childhood bedroom, and I was very excited once when I suddenly remembered that my parents had kept a very crowded bulletin board in the kitchen by the phone in that house. This feeling can apply to little things like that, and it also works on a larger scale. I miss London and Venice like they’re old friends I haven’t spoken to in ages. Seeing photos of them is like finding a photo of a long lost lover. Not that I’m being dramatic or anything.
6) Craving or fondly remembering a scent
Friends of mine might be surprised by this one, since I’m a notorious smell-avoider. Thanks to my sensitive nose and predisposition to headaches, I dislike most strong, artificial fragrances, including scented candles, lotions, and perfumes, to name a few.
But while I’m not craving those, I don’t go through life hating everything I smell! I’m not a monster; I love petrichor, sharpened pencils, old books, fresh air, baking bread, etc. In fact, I think those of us with sensitive noses might have a higher appreciation for natural smells than some—I can’t imagine covering up the comforting scent of air conditioning with a gross air freshener, for example.
Sometimes, a smell will get “stuck in my head,” and I’ll find myself recalling it later on, thinking about how pleasant it was. My most recent example of this is my new car—after driving it for a few weeks, I found that I would randomly remember the new car smell and look forward to my next drive. Another big example for me is the scent of ice cream shops. It’s a more subtle smell than you’d get at, say, a bakery, but it’s there and it’s completely unique; a light, chilled, and alluring sweetness. I once played a computer game as a kid that had a bell chime that sounded exactly like the bell on the door of one of my favorite ice cream shops from a family vacation. I rang the bell again and again, remembering the delicious smell of that shop and wishing I could go back. (Also? Beach smell.)
7) Lacking a word that describes how you feel
Indeed, we’ve come full circle and this list is now meta. But I experience this often enough—wanting a word for what I’m feeling but coming up blank—that I think it also deserves its own term! This feeling is more than just not being able to think of the right response until later; it’s about lacking the language to give your own experiences meaning and validation. Language is a powerful thing, and labeling our emotions enables us to communicate more effectively. When language evolves, we can evolve with it… Hey, maybe I just need to learn Heptapod B, the fictional alien language in Arrival, so I can unlock my mind.
Once again, I really do invite anyone reading—linguist or not—to chime in with knowledge of existing words that match or come close to the feelings I’ve described here.
Additionally, I encourage everyone to think about what feelings and experiences you wish you had a descriptor. Is there some part of life that you think you could better explain, but the word escapes you? Let me know in the comments. Maybe we can help each other out.
Also, go see Arrival.
Featured image source: Unsplash.
