The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

A tumblr blog full of definitions of sorrows and moments of melancholiness many of us feel throughout our lives has somehow made me very happy. The irony of the situation can be explained in the fact that I am relieved these emotions I feel is an very real and relvant concept. It's the idea that we are not alone.0

 The full range of human emotions is so incredibly vast. I'm sure some of these definition are bit of a stretch or created by the author, that being said, many of them are based off of concepts found in other languages. The author of the tumblr blog has done a very good job researching, and I love how he explains and articulates these emotions.

It's poetic, intelligent, and personal all at the same time. Here's the blog. And here's a few examples that really touched me. Of course, there's like 112 pages and I've only gone through 4 so far. There's gotta be some within all that pages that resounds deep within each of us. Everyone has their troubles and sorrows. Behind every happy story is usually a more difficult one.

SONDER

n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

OPIA

n. the ambiguous intensity of looking someone in the eye, which can feel simultaneously invasive and vulnerable—their pupils glittering, bottomless and opaque—as if you were peering through a hole in the door of a house, able to tell that there’s someone standing there, but unable to tell if you’re looking in or looking out.

 

SILIENCE

 

n. the kind of unnoticed excellence that carries on around you every day, unremarkably—the hidden talents of friends and coworkers, the fleeting solos of subway buskers, the slapdash eloquence of anonymous users, the unseen portfolios of aspiring artists—which would be renowned as masterpieces if only they’d been appraised by the cartel of popular taste, who assume that brilliance is a rare and precious quality, accidentally overlooking buried jewels that may not be flawless but are still somehow perfect.