Dear Readers,
Every now and then, I read something that makes me say, “Oh yes… he knows. He’s felt what I feel!” Or I hear a song and feel my emotions being set forth for the entire world to understand. You can see many of them under the “music” on my blog. Sometimes I need to share them with Philip. Other times I need to share them with you.
Today the writer Jonathan Carroll’s Facebook page led me to a tumblr written by John Koenig called “The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows” which sounds rather ominous, but is actually a thoughtful compendium of definitions of emotions. It helps to have a name for each one.
http://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com
I read and read… nodding my head at almost every entry. I encourage you to do the same. It helps me to synthesize the muddle of emotions tumbling around in my head, and to know that someone else understands and is telling the world. Here are two to get you started:
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 that you had originally skimmed through to get to the good parts, only to learn that all along you were supposed to choose your own adventure.
n. frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone—spending the first few weeks chatting in their psychological entryway, with each subsequent conversation like entering a different anteroom, each a little closer to the center of the house—wishing instead that you could start there and work your way out, exchanging your deepest secrets first, before easing into casualness, until you’ve built up enough mystery over the years to ask them where they’re from, and what they do for a living.
Vagor Morpheus Adluvio Tostus – To wander aimlessly until one enters a Dreamlike state lifting one’s soul toward Dreamland BBQ where you suck juicy ribs to the bone and lap up the remaining sauce with Wonderbread until entering a hypnotic state until exhaustion.
Tenacious – When a Coon dog is so determined that when the racoon climbs up the tree the dog climbs up right behind him and chomps down on the racoon’s tail and holds on even after and in spite of the fact that the racoon wheels around and bites down on the dogs balls. That’s the definition of tenacity.