harmonoia n. an itchy sense of dread when life feels just a hint too peaceful—when

énouement n. the bittersweetness of having arrived here in the future, finally learning the answers to how things turned out but being unable to tell your past self.

as if we’re all trick-or-treating through society wearing one of a handful of premade costumes, because we’re tired of answering the question, “What are you supposed to be?”

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;

Our streets must be teeming with accidental strangers, who just happened to miss their cue—who share everything in common, except for time and place.

You see yourself as you are, with your failures just as clear as your successes. But you see most other people on their terms—only from the side they want you to see, like a statue on a high pedestal, stoic and confident. At first glance, they’ve got everything figured out, with every feature set in stone, exactly as they had intended. They appear

ledsome adj. feeling lonely in a crowd; drifting along in a sea of anonymous faces but unable to communicate with or confide in any of them.

Sometimes you have no idea what to think about yourself, feeling somehow better than everybody but not good enough for anybody.

the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place, as maladapted to your surroundings as a seal on a beach, lumbering and clumsy, huddled in the company of other misfits, dreaming of life in your natural habitat, a place where you’d be fluidly, brilliantly, effortlessly at home.