𝐨𝐛𝐬𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭𝐬 𝐯𝐨𝐥.𝟐.
a collection of words to describe the strangeness of being human, continued.
✦ aesthosis: the state of feeling trapped inside your own subjective tastes—not knowing why you find certain things beautiful or ugly, only that you do.
✦ anoscetia: the anxiety of not knowing “the real you”.
✦ chrysalism: the amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm.
✦ elsewise: to be struck by the poignant strangeness of other people’s homes, which smell and feel different from your own.
✦ exulansis: the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it, which allows it to drift away from the rest of your story until it feels out of place.
✦ fata organa: a flash of real emotion glimpsed in someone sitting across the room, as if you could see backstage through a gap in the curtains.
✦ flichtish: to be nervously aware how much of your self-image is based on untested assumptions about yourself.
✦ funkenzwangsvorstellung: the primal trance of watching a campfire in the dark.
✦ ghough: a state of panic that everything good will be taken from you too early, which makes you want to swallow the world before it ends up swallowing you.
✦ hiddled: feeling the loneliness of having to keep a secret to yourself.
✦ jouska: a hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head.
✦ koinophobia: the fear that you’ve lived an ordinary life.
✦ loss of backing: an abrupt collapse of trust in yourself, which makes it that much harder to guarantee that your word is worth anything, even to yourself.
✦ mahpiohanzia: the frustration of being unable to fly.
✦ malotype: a certain person who embodies all the things you like the least about yourself, which leaves you feeling repulsed and fascinated in equal measure.
✦ maru mori: the heartbreaking simplicity of ordinary things.
✦ midding: the tranquil pleasure of being near a gathering but not quite in it, feeling blissfully invisible yet still fully included.
✦ nementia: the post-distraction effort to recall the reason you‘re feeling particularly anxious or angry or excited, trying to retrace your sequence of thoughts like a kid gathering the string of a downed kite.
✦ occhiolism: the awareness of how fundamentally limited your senses are.
✦ ochisia: the fear that the role you once occupied in someone’s life could be refilled without a second thought.
✦ onism: the awareness of how little of the world you’ll experience.
✦ querinous: the longing for a sense of certainty in a relationship.
✦ rückkehrunruhe: the feeling of returning from an immersive trip only to notice it fading rapidly from your awareness, as if your brain had automatically assumed it was all just a dream.
✦ sayfish: a sincere emotion that seems to wither into mush as soon as you try to put it into words.
✦ solysium: the unhinged delirium of being alone for an extended period of time.
✦ tarrion: an odd interval of blankness felt after something big happens to you but before you feel the resulting emotional reaction.
✦ the kick drop: the moment you wake up from an immersive dream and have to abruptly recalibrate to the real world—unquitting your job, falling right back out of love, reburying your lost loved ones.
✦ the standard blues: the dispiriting awareness that the twists and turns of your life feel new and profound but are not unique, which makes even your toughest challenges feel harmless and predictable, just another remake of the same old story.
✦ the wends: the frustration that you’re not enjoying an experience as much as you should.
✦ vaucasy: the fear that you’re little more than a product of your circumstances.
✦ vicarous: being curious to know what someone else would do if they were in your shoes, eager to watch another actor put their own spin on the character that is You.
✦ watashiato: curiosity about the impact you’ve had on the lives of the people you know, wondering which of your harmless actions or long-forgotten words might have altered the plot of their stories in ways you’ll never get to see.
✦ wellium: an excuse you come up with to rationalize a disappointing outcome.
✦ wildred: feeling the haunting solitude of extremely remote places, which makes you feel like you’ve just intruded on a conversation that had nothing to do with you.
✦ zielschmerz: the dread of finally pursuing a lifelong dream.