I have a weird obsession with listening to my heart beat. In a quiet room, I listen for it. I don’t think it has anything to do with being alive or something, I think it is just because my heart beat is something unique to me. No one else in the world has my exact heart beat. I found an article online and I found the exact definition for what some people might say as a weird obsession, “Rubatosis,” The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat. I also never thought I would have the words to explain my love for listen to thunderstorms inside. Listening to every rain drop hit the windows and the thunder rolling over top of my house, it's magical. Who knew, "Chrysalism," could describe this peace.
Here is a list of unexplainable feelings and experiences, put into words.
Sonder:
The realization that each passerby has a life as vivid and complex as your own
Opia:
The ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable
Monachopsis:
The subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.
Énouement:
The bittersweetness of having arrived in the future, seeing how things turn out, but not being able to tell your past self.
Vellichor:
The strange wistfulness of used bookshops.
Rubatosis:
The unsettling awareness of your own heartbeat.
Kenopsia:
The eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that is usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet.
Mauerbauertraurigkeit:
The inexplicable urge to push people away, even close friends who you really like.
Jouska:
A hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head.
Chrysalism:
The amniotic tranquility of being indoors during a thunderstorm.
Vemödalen:
The frustration of photographic something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist.
Anecdoche:
A conversation in which everyone is talking, but nobody is listening
Ellipsism:
A sadness that you’ll never be able to know how history will turn out.
Kuebiko
A state of exhaustion inspired by acts of senseless violence.
Lachesism:
The desire to be struck by disaster–to survive a plane crash, or to lose everything in a fire.
Exulansis:
The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it.
Adronitis:
Frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone.
Rückkehrunruhe:
The feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness.
Nodus Tollens
The realization that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you anymore.
Onism
The frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time.
Liberosis:
The desire to care less about things.
Altschmerz:
Weariness with the same old issues that you’ve always had–the same boring flaws and anxieties that you’ve been gnawing on for years.
Occhiolism:
The awareness of the smallness of your perspective.
I know I have had at least one of these feelings and experiences in my life and even though I’m sure I will never have these words memorized, it’s settling knowing that they at least exist.
