A Perfect Word

Sometimes the most satisfying moment of the day is finding a word for some idea or sensation you've been having that has so far gone without being expressed. Today's "word of the day" fills a language gap I've been wrestling with for a few years. In fact I'm so revlieved that someone (in this case the germans, who have a wealth of "feeling" words,) has understood the sensation and given it a name:

weltschmerz (VELT-shmerts) noun

World weariness; pessimism, apathy, or sadness felt at the difference
between physical reality and the ideal state.

[From German Weltschmerz, from Welt (world) + Schmerz (pain).]

It seems like a stupid little thing to be happy about, but knowledge is power. Many cultures believe that if you can make the unknown, known, you have power over it. Even the book of Genesis in the Bible relates that Adam was given the task of naming the animals and thus dominion over them. On a more semiotic level, if you can give something a name it becomes an real thing in your mind and can be thought about. Therapists are always trying to get people to talk about what might be bothering them with the intention that giving words to the pain takes it out of the dark and murky realm of the unknown and into the realm of thinking. Let's just say that this particular sensation in the back of my head, making me sad, exhausted, angry... now has a name: weltschmerz. And perhaps I can begin attempting to manage my weltschmerz better...

or at least I can throw it out at a party and look intellectual for a second. HAH!