The conquest of new words | John Koenig | TEDxBerkeley

Creator of the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, John Koenig, ventures into the unmapped corners of the human mind. He returns with words that give form to our darkest, yet all-too-familiar thoughts. In this talk, he highlights our passive coexistence with words, and challenges us to embark on a conquest of reclamation - of written language, and of the human experience.

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John has spent the last decade building a home in every creative field he can find, working as a graphic designer, video editor, voice actor, illustrator, photographer, director, and writer. He has spent the last six years writing an original dictionary of made-up words, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, which fills gaps in the language with hundreds of new terms for emotions, some of which (‘sonder’) have entered the language outright. His writing has been published in countless tattoos, novels, and band names - but never on paper, though he is currently working on publishing a book adaptation. “Koenig is a writer to be reckoned with. He’s enormously creative, and he understands the power, life force, and funniness of sadness. The Dictionary is the kind of thing you want to print and bind, and refer to often.” - Business Standard

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Thanks for sticking around,

thanks for having a big red X
burned into your eyeballs

for the next three days.

(Laughter)

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.

I think you are all lucky
to speak it, as well.

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.

It started watching the end credits
of "Saturday Night Live,"

and I was beset by the most
beautiful and haunting melancholy.

If you ever get a chance
to stay up that late,

I would urge you to watch
the end credits of SNL.

And so, I decided to try
to define that emotion.

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.

It's phenomenal.

So I think from there,
that changed how I look at words

and what makes words real.

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)

And so, languages
are a reflection of desire

something that they want to be there.

And it may be the road less traveled,

but it will get there eventually.

But that's not really a satisfying answer,

so I gave up on that one.

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.

I saw an interview with
the religious scholar Reza Aslan.

He was describing a misunderstanding

that many people have about religion.

He said that what a religion is

is basically a set of
symbols and metaphors

that people pour themselves into

to try to express something inexpressible.

Religion is essentially just a language.

That's all it is.

It's a container for whatever
meanings we bring to it.

And that got me thinking ...

What if language was a kind of religion.

That would mean that this
is basically our holy book.

And if you think of the creation story,

it's really more of a definition story.

In the beginning, there was chaos
upon the waters of the Earth

and then God separated
the land from the sea,

the fish from the birds, man from woman,

the eternal from the ephemeral.

That's all in these pages.

That's what a definition is.

And so, if we're looking
for meaning in the world,

this is our faith, this is our holy book.

Because the reality is,

and the point of this holy book,

and the point of, I think, all holy books,

is that it brings a sense of order

to a very chaotic universe.

Our view of things is so limited

and the universe is so complicated

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.

And that's why we need words to do that,

to give meaning to our lives.

But even more than that,

we need words to contain us,
to define ourselves.

And that is, I think, a lot
of how we use words right now,

we're all sort of begging
to be defined, in certain ways.

And I think especially now,
with technology and globalization,

it's so easy to get lost in the fog.

Each of us is undefined, in a way,

and the world is becoming
ever more undefined.

And so, I think a lot
of the structures that we look to

to try to contain ourselves

look like this.

Both in the sense
of "pound" and "hashtag."

(Laughter)

It's trying to box ourselves in
in certain ways

and say, to look for certain entries
and certain categories

and say, "Yes, that's me."

What we do is look at other people

and say, "You're like me ...

And so, we are an 'us'."

And that gives us meaning.

That's just a way of borrowing meaning.

The problem is that a lot of that
depends on institutions

and there are so many of us now,

and life is now so complicated and chaotic

that we have to wall ourselves off.

We're becoming
fundamentalists in our faith.

Literalists.

Because we all feel these categories
start to fall apart.

Have you noticed how many
of our conversations now

are about the definitions of words?

I don't know how many times I've seen
a conversation on the Huffington Post

that starts "Are you a feminist?"

"What does 'feminist' mean?"

"Who on this debate stage
is the real progressive?"

"What does 'socialist' mean?"

"Who is a 'fascist'?"

"Who is a 'woman'?"

Caitlyn Jenner.

"Who is 'black'?" Rachel Dolezal.

These are the kind of conversations
we have all the time,

but they're not really about meaning.

They're about how we package the world.

And so, I think the end result

is that we end up
looking something like this,

where we allow words to define us.

We forget that all words are made up.

They're just models of how the world
could be or should be,

and so, we're all withdrawing
in our own communities of concern,

speaking in our own languages

when in fact, the world is more than that.

I think all of us feel

that the categories that we use
to give our lives meaning

don't necessarily fit us all that well.

And so, we have to explain to people that,

that, "Yes, I subscribe to this,

but that doesn't define me.

We have to keep doing this over and over,

negotiating how we fit
into the categories that we have.

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.

And so I think what I'd like to --

The image I have of where we are today,

I think of Anne Frank.

Because she was in her little
apartment in Amsterdam

and in a time when everyone around her

was trying to organize humanity

in a way that made sense
with clean lines and brutal efficiency,

she was on the inside,
organizing her own humanity.

I think there's something
really beautiful about that,

because a lot of it was
about her own confusion

and her own vulnerability.

And I think that's why we need
a new kind of language

that looks a little more like this.

Because each of us could be anyone.

At any given time,
we are not just one person,

we are many people at once.

And so, we have to get more in line
with how the world actually is,

not to get too caught up in the models
that we've imposed on the world.

GPS devices tend to warn you,

reminding you that the map you see
is not the real world,

so don't run into a lake.

(Laughter)

And I think we need the same reminder,

that the map is not the real world

and so if we run into these problems,

we have an option
to define things for ourself;

we don't necessarily
just have to borrow the meanings

that give meaning to our lives.

It is possible --

and I know this because
I've been doing it the last seven years --

to come up with new metaphors

that make the invisible visible.

There's something
really beautiful about that.

And I think if we got
in a better relationship with chaos,

if we stopped trying to oversimplify

the interior storm
that all of us are facing

and the confusion and the vulnerability,

and how complicated the world really is,

then we could feel
a little more comfortable in our skin

and we wouldn't have to withdraw

within the categories
that we allow to define us.

And we could take the power
back from our words

and define them.

I think that's a little more
healthy relationship.

I don't know how many conversations
would be benefited by someone --

Like the game Catch Phrase,

where you're given
the actual topic you're talking about,

so the challenge is,
"Don't say that word."

I think if we all did that,
we would be a little better off.

Because it would allow
certain lexical fluidity

that I think we're losing now.

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.

I think it's important to remember that.

And if we took some sense
of creativity and authorship

in inventing who we are,

that is possible.

It is possible to try to reach
for richer metaphors.

This world has never been as complicated,

and our lives have never been
more complicated than they are right now.

And so, instead of reaching
for the nearest standardized word,

or just begging to be
diagnosed with something,

it is worth actually being present,

in sadness, for example.

In the chaos of emotion.

I think that's worth doing.

I think we need new lenses

to help contextualize the chaos
that we face all the time.

And if we do that,

if each of us is willing
to actually define who it is we are

with some sense of creativity,

I think the world could look
a little more like this.

Really messy.

I think we are really messy people

and the world is a really messy world.

And I think this would not be so bad,

us pouring out of these institutions,

which are weakening all the time,

and meeting each other as we are,

in all our vulnerability,

wearing our emotions on our sleeves.

And I think,

as messy as it is,

it would be a little more
fulfilling to do that.

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)