Tag: words

malotype– n. a certain person who embodies all the things you like the least about yourself – a seeming caricature of your worst tendencies – which leave you feeling repulsed and fascinated in equal measure, having stumbled on a role model of exactly the kind of person you never want to be.

One of my hobbies is coaching volleyball for kids, teenagers really. This year I’ve taken on 13 year olds, and helping out with an 18 year old team as their coach is out for a few weeks. It’s been an interesting dichotomy, and I’ve now helped coach all ages from 13-18.

In the eight years I’ve been coaching, I’ve worked with, and watched a number of coaches. In that time, I’ve seen a few that are polar opposites of who I try to be. One in particular that was very good at understanding the game, knew all the rules, and recognized things to exploit in opponents.

However, this person was not good with players, in my opinion. Harsh, unapproachable, didn’t listen to concerns, didn’t provide support, belittled (my opinion) players, and demanded too much.

I can be loud, and I’ve been short with players at times. I try not to do that often, and I try hard to support them to help them grow, accepting their fallibilities while pushing them to grow and change. A number of players have said they would never want to be near that coach again and one quit a time.

I hope I never become my malotype.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

loss of backing– n. an abrupt collapse of trust in yourself – having abandoned a resolution, surrendered to your demons, or squandered an opportunity you swore you’d take seriously this time – which resets your expectations and makes it that much harder to guarantee that your word is worth anything, even to yourself.

Perhaps this is maturity, or maybe it’s giving up some strong sense of integrity. I prefer to think that I’m more kind to myself and accepting of my frailty. I rarely promise anything, to myself or others. I make best effort attempts, but I know that the world is chaotic and I’m imperfect. I can’t predict the future and I know that I might change my mind, circumstances might evolve, or perhaps my initial impetus to do something makes no sense.

I try not to make too many resolutions, but make efforts to improve. I look for the DevOps way of experimenting and learning, accepting some failure, but not making absolute promises about things. Across the pandemic I also learned that sometimes I have to just take care of myself rather than continuously driving to some arbitrary goal.

I miss days of working out, when I spent years not doing that. I make poor choices of food. I sometimes work too little or too hard, at least according to my standards. I sometimes need to take a break, and give myself a break, from life and other commitments, so I miss things, cancel plans, or just appreciate the break in life.

Perhaps it’s age as well, but I don’t feel a loss of backing in myself.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

aesthosis– n. the state of feeling trapped inside your own subjective tastes – not knowing why you find certain things beautiful or ugly, only that you do – wishing you could remove the sociopsychological lenses from your eyes so you could see the beauty in anything and be moved to tears by the smell of burning garbage, the aria of a screaming toddler, or a neon Elvis painted on black velvet.

Earlier in my life, I had stronger tastes, opinions, and judgments. Often just inside my own head, but I still had them. I might even point out to someone that I didn’t like something, regardless of whether they liked it. Often without prompting, which is a bit of a way of being a jerk for no reason.

As I’ve gotten older, I find myself less strongly moved by things. I can instead appreciate them for what they are, express curiosity why others might find them desirable or horrific, or just let the impression I have wash over me.

I got on a plane recently and there was an infant or toddler crying. For most of the flight. A few people complained around me quietly, but I could appreciate the challenge the parents were facing (and the shame or embarrassment), empathize with the little one’s fear, and really just accept this as part of the day. I wasn’t judging, just experiencing.

I had a similar experience when there was some visual thing the kids sent everyone. My wife liked it ( I assume it was a joke), but I remember not really finding it funny, but being more curious about why one kid did. I think the five of us were split on how we felt, but it was just interesting to me.

I don’t feel so trapped anymore, just interested in the world.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows

proluctance – n. the paradoxical urge to avoid doing something you’ve been looking forward to – opening a decisive letter, meeting up with a friend who’s finally back in town, reading a new book from your favorite author – perpetually waiting around for the right state of mind, stretching out the bliss of anticipation as long as you can.

Sometimes the anticipation of something, good or bad, is more impactful than the thing. I certainly can understand not wanting to take a call or open a letter because the result might not be positive, or what I wanted.

The one place I certainly see this is with books. I have a few authors that I just buy their new books, often pre-ordering them. Lee Child is one and I often pre-order his books weeks or months in advance. However, when they come, I don’t always start reading them.

Sometimes I might be in the middle of something else, but quite a few times I’ve saved the book for my next long flight. I tend to take a 4+ (or often 8+) hour flight every quarter, so I’ve saved a few books until I knew I’d be stuck in a seat. In fact, the latest one, The Secret, was one of those. It came in late Oct 2023, and I knew I had a few trips scheduled in the next few weeks, so I delayed reading this until I was headed to the PASS Summit in November.

To help build my own anticipation and feed my proluctance, I re-read a couple of his older books in the meantime

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows