Tag: words

flichtish – adj. nervously aware how much of your self-image is based on untested assumptions about yourself – only ever guessing how you’d react to a violent thread, a sudden windfall, a huge responsibility, or being told to do something you knew was wrong..

I used to think I had all the answers and knew how I’d react to situations or what type of person I was.

I was a teenager. I think this view is fairly common among teenagers, but also in older people. I see too many people with confidence in how they’d react to an unknown.

And I see too often they don’t actually react that way. The more self-aware people recognize that their self-image was untested and wrong. The less self-aware people think the situation was an anomaly.

I know that until I walk a mile in my shoes in some situation, I’m very un-tested. I have a guess as to what my self-image is, but I doubt it is 100% true. As Mike Tyson says, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Flichtish is a recognition of that saying.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

ioia – n.the wish that you could see statistics overlaid on every person you encounter – checking the signal strength of their compatibility, a measure of their trustworthiness.

I subscribe to the NFL Plus mobile package every year and watch various games on my phone/tablet as I have time. Often I watch some while working on the ranch, cutting grass, shopping in the grocery, etc. I bring this up as there are a few viewing options in the package. I can watch the normal game broadcast, but I can also see one with stats. This looks similar to the image below:

I thought I would enjoy this, but I don’t. I don’t mind some stats at times, but I don’t like when there is an overlay while the players are in action.

The idea of ioia being always overlaid on what I see, ala the Apple Vision or Google Glass views, would be annoying, and distracting. Already people checking mobiles is annoying.

If I could control the display, and dismiss it, then maybe ioia is something I’d embrace. Of course, there’s still the concern with data quality as a lot of ratings for people are very subjective.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

mcfeely – adj. inexplicably moved by predictable and well-worn sentiments, even if they are trite or obvious or being broadcast blindly to the masses.

I get mcfeely all the time. Recently I was listening to A Beautiful Life, from a movie by the same name. It’s a simple song, simple lyrics, but it creates a lot of emotion in me. It brings back memories of finding out my wife was pregnant with my daughter, of the early years when I put her to bed and read stories, of when she grew up and moved away for college.

Music often does this for me, as do movies/television or even a well written passage in a book. It could be joy, sadness, anger, or anything else. I enjoy the emotion of the situations I’ve escaped into.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

the standard blues– n. the dispiriting awareness that the twists and turns of your life feel new and profound, but are not unique – marked by the same coming-of-age struggles as millions of others, the same career setbacks, the same family strife, the same learning curve of parenting – which makes even your toughest challenges feel harmless and predictable, just another rename of the same old story.

In many ways I relate to the standard blues, though I don’t find them blue, but comforting. I was at dinner with our volleyball team and their parents. One of the other sets of parents had a 4-year old, who struggled to sit still and made dinner a challenge.

I remember those days. Remember feeling this is way harder for me and my wife than others. Especially when we had 2 little ones, and everyone else didn’t. However, over time I realized that it was new and hard to me, but it’s the same thing others went through. I still see that today with parents on that part of their journey.

I think a lot of things that feel tough in life, stress over finding a job, over your first review, over purchasing a house or car, are not that tough a challenge as they feel in that moment. They are just a new experience for you.

Even when my father passed, it was a shock, but I took comfort from others that had gone through the same thing, and from the knowledge that it’s a part of life.

Sometimes events are blue, and sometimes they are just new events. Fortunately most of the time they aren’t as unique or hard over time as they are in the moment.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows