cool words

kenopsia:

"n. the eerie, forlorn atmosphere of a place that’s usually bustling with people but is now abandoned and quiet - a school hallway in the evening, an unlit office on a weekend, vacant fairgrounds—an emotional afterimage that makes it seem not just empty but hyper-empty, with a total population in the negative, who are so conspicuously absent they glow like neon signs."

I think that this term, kenopsia, has strong ties with liminal spaces. In fact, I think that many liminal spaces give such a strong feeling because of this term. It's a very interesting feeling, that I'm sure many people have felt at least a few times in their lives. Whether being at school after almost everyone's went home, or at a dead mall with the shops still open but no shoppers to be seen, or maybe a usually busy town square empty at night, the feeling of kenopsia can be found in many places. Especially with the rise of discussion in interest of "dead malls", I think this term should be in more people's minds. I feel that kenopsia can be an eerie feeling, but personally I believe it to be a more lonely, quiet, and bittersweet feeling. Kind of akin to a form of nostalgia, like finding a box filled with your favorite toys from your childhood, you feel a sort of quiet joy from finding a childhood treasure, but there's also a quiet sadness as well, since you realize you'll never be a carefree kid again.

"Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something."

Kurt Vonnegut

This quote has sat in my Reddit account as the only comment I have ever saved, and honestly it deserves that "honor". It's pretty inspirational and follows something that I wholeheartedly believe in, which is the creation of literally anything. Whether you're creating massive paintings on canvases or just doodling in spiral notebooks, I really don't think it matters, just creating is such a beautiful and rewarding thing. I absolutely love making whatever, whether it be taking pictures, or making edits in After Effects, or working on shoddy pixel art, or even working on this very website! And if you're reading this, I implore you to, if you don't already have something, to find some form of creation that you enjoy doing, and do it for fun, do it just to create something, do it for you!

anemoia:

"n. nostalgia for a time you’ve never known - imagine stepping through the frame into a sepia-tinted haze, where you could sit on the side of the road and watch the locals passing by. Who lived and died before any of us arrived here, who sleep in some of the same houses we do, who look up at the same moon, who breathe the same air, feel the same blood in their veins—and live in a completely different world."

I think that many, many people -- especially younger people -- have experienced anemoia. Especially with younger people looking back and loving the styles and aesthetics of decades previous, when they hadn't even been born yet. I see this term with the obsession you can find with the 80's mainly. You know what I'm talking about: malls with people actually in them, pastel blues and pinks, neon, synthpop, black sunglasses. My mom has a lot of nostalgia for the 80's, but she's someone that was a teenager and young adult during the 80's, so her nostalgia would be firsthand and really wouldn't be this term. I love hearing her talk about that decade and it gives me a heavy sense of nostalgia for that time, even though that was decades before I was born, hence anemoia.

"God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

There are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand."

Rainer Maria Rilke

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."

"Below, the city trembles with its remaining lights. People are rushing home, running away from home, smoking, sleeping, singing in the shower. Edges of dining tables, hands, aprons flicker through windows before the lights go out."

Disco Elysium - Shivers

I played through the entire of Disco Elysium a few months ago over the summer and I absolutely loved it! The writing is, of course, probably the most talked about thing of the game and for good reason. This Shivers quote above, however, is most likely my favorite little bit of standalone writing in the game. This quote reminds me heavily of the term sonder that's defined above on this page. Even as someone that doesn't live in a big city, this quote gives me the vivid thought of leaning on my apartment balcony smoking one last cigarette before bed, while I watch the world below. I see people bar-hopping, some couples on dates, an argument here, a thoughtful conversation there, drunks, taxi drivers, an exhausted worker on their long walk home. A neighbor across the street on their balcony and I exchange a glance and a nod, just before I go inside to get under the covers and go to sleep. Reading this quote, I can almost smell the sidewalk concrete after a light rain, I can almost see the window here and there with the lights still on, I can almost hear distant cars and words being carried down the street. It's such a vivid quote and I would love to have it framed to see every day. <3

"You feel nice and lonely. And so, so tired."

Disco Elysium - Inland Empire

Taking a bath after a particularly long day.