The author of this site makes up (they’re probably not real) words to give names to things that are experienced (but not named). Things dont really exist until they have a title right? Here are some of my fav xx
1. Heartworm (n)
a relationship or friendship that you cant get out of your head, which you thought had faded a long time ago but is still somehow alive and unfinished; like an abandoned campsite whose smoldering embers still have the power to start a forest fire
2. Ambedo (n)
a kind of melancholic trance in which you become completely absorbed n vivid sensory details - raindrops skittering down a window, tall trees leaning in the wind, clouds of cream swirling in your coffee - which leads to the dawning awareness of the haunting fragility of life.
3. nodus tollens (n)
the realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore—that although you thought you were following the arc of the story, you keep finding yourself immersed in passages you don’t understand, that don’t even seem to belong in the same genre—which requires you to go back and reread the chapters you had originally skimmed to get to the good parts, only to learn that all along you were supposed to choose your own adventure.
4. kairosclerosis (n)
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.
5. dead reckoning (n)
to find yourself bothered by someone’s death more than you would have expected, as if you assumed they would always be part of the landscape, like a lighthouse you could pass by for years until the night it suddenly goes dark, leaving you with one less landmark to navigate by—still able to find your bearings.
6. gnossienne (n)
a moment of awareness that someone you’ve known for years still has a private and mysterious inner life, and somewhere in the hallways of their personality is a door locked from the inside, a stairway leading to a wing of the house that you’ve never fully explored—an unfinished attic that will remain maddeningly unknowable to you, because ultimately neither of you has a map, or a master key, or any way of knowing exactly where you stand.
7. adomania (n)
the sense that the future is arriving ahead of schedule, that all those years with fantastical names like ‘2013’ are bursting from their hypothetical cages into the arena of the present.
8. opia (n)
the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable—their pupils glittering, bottomless and opaque—as if you were peering through a hole in the door of a house, able to tell that there’s someone standing there, but unable to tell if you’re looking in or looking out.
9. reverse shibboleth
the practice of answering a cellphone with a generic “Hello?” as if you didn’t already know exactly who was calling.
10. daguerreologue (n)
an imaginary interview with an old photo of yourself, an enigmatic figure who still lives in the grainy and color-warped house you grew up in, who may well spend a lot of their day wondering where you are and what you’re doing now
11. rubatosis (n)
the unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat, whose tenuous muscular throbbing feels less like a metronome than a nervous ditty your heart is tapping to itself,
12. sonder (n)
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 (i normally have these while sitting in a train)
13. mauerbauretraurigkeit (n)
the inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends who you really like—as if all your social tastebuds suddenly went numb, leaving you unable to distinguish cheap politeness from the taste of genuine affection, unable to recognize its rich and ambiguous flavors, its long and delicate maturation, or the simple fact that each tasting is double-blind.
14. chrysalism (n)
the amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm, listening to waves of rain pattering against the roof like an argument upstairs
15. moledro (n)
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.
16. deep cut (n)
an emotion you haven’t felt in years that you might have forgotten about completely if your emotional playlist hadn’t been left on shuffle—a feeling whose opening riff tugs on all your other neurons like a dog on a leash waiting for you to open the door.
17. scabulous (adj)
proud of a scar on your body, an autograph signed to you by a world grateful for your continued willingness to play with her, even when you don’t feel like it.
18. rollover reaction (n)
when your dream about someone you know skews how you feel about them all the next day, an emotion you are unable—and unwilling—to shake.
19. mahpiohanza (n)
the disappointment of being unable to fly, unable to stretch out your arms and vault into the air.
20. Anthrodynia (n)
the state of exhaustion of how shitty people can be towards each other, typically causing a countervailing sense of affection for those that are sincere but not judgemental, are unabashedly joyful, or just are.
peace xx !!
