For a moment you’re able to shake off the spell of language and see things as they are, in all their unknowable complexity. This world is far bigger than the handful of places you’ve seen or heard about; your inner experience is far richer than the stories you tell yourself; your loved ones are far deeper than the roles they play in your life; stra

Maybe you spent so long wondering who you were going to be one day, you forgot that that question actually has an answer, and that “one day” would soon arrive.

much of our culture exists because someone was hungry once, someone was bored, someone was afraid, someone wanted to impress a mate, prove someone wrong, or leave their kids a better life.

zielschmerz n. the dread of finally pursuing a lifelong dream, which requires you to put your true abilities out there to be tested on the open savannah,

Maybe you’ll never get over the initial shock of existing at all, and will spend your life as a perpetual newcomer, still trying to catch your breath, right until the last.

And if you are lucky enough to feel sad, well, savor it while it lasts—if only because it means that you care about something in this world enough to let it under your skin.

scrough v. intr. to mindlessly perform a tedious task that nobody will ever notice, required by a bureaucracy that nobody fully owns, in pursuit of outcomes that nobody really wants.

anecdoche n. a conversation in which everyone is talking but nobody is listening—instead merely overlaying words like a spoken game of Scrabble, each player borrowing bits of others’ anecdotes to build out their own, until we reach a point when we all run out of things to say.

fygophobia n. the fear that your connections with people will keep dwindling as you get older; that one by one, you’ll all go flying off the merry-go-round in wildly different directions, sailing through various classes and jobs and interests, ultimately landing in far-flung neighborhoods where you’ll hunker down with your families plus a handful o