Beautiful new words to describe obscure emotions

John Koenig loves finding words that express our unarticulated feelings -- like "lachesism," the hunger for disaster, and "sonder," the realization that everyone else's lives are as complex and unknowable as our own. Here, he meditates on the meaning we assign to words and how these meanings latch onto us.

Today I want to talk
about the meaning of words,

how we define them

and how they, almost as revenge,

define us.

The English language
is a magnificent sponge.

I love the English language.
I'm glad that I speak it.

But for all that, it has a lot of holes.

In Greek, there's a word, "lachesism"

which is the hunger for disaster.

You know, when you see
a thunderstorm on the horizon

and you just find yourself
rooting for the storm.

In Mandarin, they have a word "yù yī" --

I'm not pronouncing that correctly --

which means the longing
to feel intensely again

the way you did when you were a kid.

In Polish, they have a word "jouska"

which is the kind of
hypothetical conversation

that you compulsively
play out in your head.

And finally, in German,
of course in German,

they have a word called "zielschmerz"

which is the dread
of getting what you want.

(Laughter)

Finally fulfilling a lifelong dream.

I'm German myself,
so I know exactly what that feels like.

Now, I'm not sure
if I would use any of these words

as I go about my day,

but I'm really glad they exist.

But the only reason they exist
is because I made them up.

I am the author of "The Dictionary
of Obscure Sorrows,"

which I've been writing
for the last seven years.

And the whole mission of the project

is to find holes
in the language of emotion

and try to fill them

so that we have a way of talking
about all those human peccadilloes

and quirks of the human condition

that we all feel
but may not think to talk about

because we don't have the words to do it.

And about halfway through this project,

I defined "sonder,"

the idea that we all think of ourselves
as the main character

and everyone else is just extras.

But in reality,
we're all the main character,

and you yourself are an extra
in someone else's story.

And so as soon as I published that,

I got a lot of response from people

saying, "Thank you for giving voice
to something I had felt all my life

but there was no word for that."

So it made them feel less alone.

That's the power of words,

to make us feel less alone.

And it was not long after that

that I started to notice sonder

being used earnestly
in conversations online,

and not long after I actually noticed it,

I caught it next to me
in an actual conversation in person.

There is no stranger feeling
than making up a word

and then seeing it
take on a mind of its own.

I don't have a word
for that yet, but I will.

(Laughter)

I'm working on it.

I started to think
about what makes words real,

because a lot of people ask me,

the most common thing
I got from people is,

"Well, are these words made up?
I don't really understand."

And I didn't really know what to tell them

because once sonder started to take off,

who am I to say what words
are real and what aren't.

And so I sort of felt like Steve Jobs,
who described his epiphany

as when he realized that most of us,
as we go through the day,

we just try to avoid
bouncing against the walls too much

and just sort of get on with things.

But once you realize that people --

that this world was built
by people no smarter than you,

then you can reach out
and touch those walls

and even put your hand through them

and realize that you have
the power to change it.

And when people ask me,
"Are these words real?"

I had a variety of answers
that I tried out.

Some of them made sense.
Some of them didn't.

But one of them I tried out was,

"Well, a word is real
if you want it to be real."

The way that this path is real
because people wanted it to be there.

(Laughter)

It happens on college
campuses all the time.

It's called a "desire path."

(Laughter)

But then I decided,
what people are really asking

when they're asking if a word is real,
they're really asking,

"Well, how many brains
will this give me access to?"

Because I think that's
a lot of how we look at language.

A word is essentially a key

that gets us into certain people's heads.

And if it gets us into one brain,

it's not really worth it,

not really worth knowing.

Two brains, eh, it depends on who it is.

A million brains, OK, now we're talking.

And so a real word is one that gets you
access to as many brains as you can.

That's what makes it worth knowing.

Incidentally, the realest word of all
by this measure is this.

[O.K.]

That's it.

The realest word we have.

That is the closest thing we have
to a master key.

That's the most commonly
understood word in the world,

no matter where you are.

The problem with that is,

no one seems to know
what those two letters stand for.

(Laughter)

Which is kind of weird, right?

I mean, it could be a misspelling
of "all correct," I guess,

or "old kinderhook."

No one really seems to know,
but the fact that it doesn't matter

says something about
how we add meaning to words.

The meaning is not
in the words themselves.

We're the ones
that pour ourselves into it.

And I think, when we're all searching
for meaning in our lives,

and searching for the meaning of life,

I think words have
something to do with that.

And I think if you're looking
for the meaning of something,

the dictionary is a decent place to start.

It brings a sense of order

to a very chaotic universe.

Our view of things is so limited

that we have to come up
with patterns and shorthands

and try to figure out
a way to interpret it

and be able to get on with our day.

We need words to contain us,
to define ourselves.

I think a lot of us feel boxed in

by how we use these words.

We forget that words are made up.

It's not just my words.
All words are made up,

but not all of them mean something.

We're all just sort of
trapped in our own lexicons

that don't necessarily correlate
with people who aren't already like us,

and so I think I feel us drifting apart
a little more every year,

the more seriously we take words.

Because remember, words are not real.

They don't have meaning. We do.

And I'd like to leave you with a reading

from one of my favorite philosophers,

Bill Watterson, who created
"Calvin and Hobbes."

He said,

"Creating a life that reflects
your values and satisfies your soul

is a rare achievement.

To invent your own life's meaning

is not easy,

but it is still allowed,

and I think you'll be
happier for the trouble."

Thank you.

(Applause)