The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

The word sadness originally meant fullness," to be filled to the brim with some intensity of experience. It's not about despair, or distraction, or controlling how you're supposed to feel, it's about awareness. Setting the focus to infinity and taking it all in, joy and grief all at once; feeling the world as it is, the word as it could be. The unknown and the unknowable, closeness and distance and trust, and the passage of time. And all the others around you who are each going through the same thing.

The Romans called it lacrimae rerum, the "tears of things." We call them obscure sorrows.

"I read the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything."

—Steven Wright

Treachery Of The Common

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Exulansis

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Zielschmerz

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Slipfast

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Plata Rasa

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Looseleft

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Ghough

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Harmonoia

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Foreclearing

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Wildred

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Treachery Of The Common

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Funkenzwangsvorstellung

Funkenzwang-svorstellung

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Fygophobia

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Dolonia

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Backmasking

a woman's face with a double exposure

Spinning Playback Head

silhouette of a person looking out a window

Maugry

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Hailbound

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Grayshift

a spiral staircase from above

Hailbound

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Aulasy

a blurry image of a house on the road

Kinchy

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Midsummer

a person standing in a garden holding a clock

Mimeomia

a person wearing an animal onesie garment

Wenbane

a person standing on a ledge looking at a city skyline

Bareleveling

Cover image for the Bareleveling word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

Querinous

Cover image for the Querinous word card on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows