There’s no word in the English language for the desire to disappear.
Or the eerie tension of a looming thunderstorm.
Or a spark of eye contact that can leave you blinded for days.
Or the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.
No word for the wistful foreboding of the first sign of autumn.
Or the instinctive tendency to see someone as you knew them in their youth.
No word for the moment you began to fear that your life would follow a sequence of predictable milestones.
Or the fear that it might never happen that way.
No word for the suspicion that you are utterly unique.
For the suspicion that you’re utterly not.
For the fear that there is no frontier left.
That you’ve already felt everything you’re ever going to feel.
My name is John Koenig.
And this is the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows,
a new web series on the Test Tube network.
Our mission is to fill all the holes left in the language, and give them each a name.
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows.
For lack of a better world.