"Ichi go ichi e" leads to "mono no aware"

Two Japanese phrases compliment each other: Ichi go ichi e leads to mono no aware.

10 Emotions You've Felt But Had No Name For

John Koenig is the marvelous author of THE DICTIONARY OF OBSCURE SORROWS, a book of neologisms to express new terms for subtle emotions. His made up words are combinations of word roots from languages all around the world. While the words themselves might sound clinical, their definitions are lyrical and touching. I have felt a few of these and am happy to know others have too...and that we finally have names for them, thanks to Koenig's imagination!

1. Chrysalism
[kris-a-lizim] The feeling of tranquility when you’re indoors when it’s raining heavily outside.

2. Lilo
[ly-lo] The friendship between two people who feel as if no time has passed when they see each other after a long period of separation.

3. Sonder
[son-der] The realization that every stranger and passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own. That each person is occupied by their own personal ambitions, worries, and problems.

4. Monachopsis
[mo-na-kop-sis] The inability to adapt to your surroundings and the feeling of being out of place.

5. Eramnesia
[eram-nee-ja] The realization that you were born in the wrong time period, wishing you lived in another time.

6. Anemoia
[an-em-oh-ya] The feeling of nostalgia for a time or place that you have never experienced.

7. Pâro
[pah-ro] The feeling that no matter what you do, you’re doing it wrong.

8. Xeno
[zee-noh] The powerful moments shared between random strangers, such as a smile or a laugh, which reduce feelings of loneliness.

9. Acatalepsy
[aka-ta-lep-sy] The apparent impossibility of humans ever comprehending the universe.

10. Liberosis
[lib-ero-sis] The desire to care less about things, to feel less.

https://www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com/
And you can buy the book here on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Dictionary-Obscure-Sorrows-John-Koenig-ebook/dp/B08VJMFFRB?ref_=ast_author_mpb

Beauty Is Melancholy

What word expresses...

Welcome to my world.


In his paper Japanese Aesthetics, Graham Parkes speaks about this concept:

"And here is [twelfth-century Buddhist monk Yoshida] Kenkō on the link between impermanence and beauty: 'If man were never to fade away like the dews of Adashino, never to vanish like the smoke over Toribeyama, how things would lose their power to move us! The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty' (Keene, 7). The acceptance and celebration of impermanence goes beyond all morbidity, and enables full enjoyment of life.

Insofar as we don't rejoice in life we fail to appreciate the pathos of the things with which we share our lives. For most of us, some of these things, impermanent as they are, will outlast us—and especially if they have been loved they will become sad things: 'It is sad to think that a man's familiar possessions, indifferent to his death, should remain long after he is gone' (Keene, 30)."


(Yugen, previously here.)

12 Enjoyable Names for Relatively Common Things

1. box tent : the plastic table-like item found in pizza boxes
2. jamais vu : that feeling of seeing something for the first time, even though there’s nothing new about it
3. paresthesia : that tingling sensation when your foot falls asleep
4. grawlix : the string of typographical symbols comic strips use to indicate profanity (“$%@!”)
5. caruncula : the small, triangular pink bump on the inside corner of each eye
6. badinage : another word for playful banter
7. rhumba : a group of rattlesnakes
8. dringle : to waste time by being lazy
9. agraffe : the wire cage that keeps the cork in a bottle of champagne
10. wings : those back flaps on a bra
11. rasher : a single slice of bacon
12. purlicue : the web between your thumb and forefinger

via Mental Floss

What word expresses...

Welcome to my world.