Obscure sorrows: Onism
Disclaimer: All credits for the word remain with John Koenig of Obscure Sorrows. This is merely a personal retelling.
Onism - n. the frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time, which is like standing in front of the departures screen at an airport, flickering over with strange place names like other people's passwords, each representing one more thing you'll never get to see before you die-and all because, as the arrow on the map helpfully points out, you are here.
Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrBlmpqh8T0
Transcript:
You are here. You were lost at first, but soon began sketching yourself a map of the world—plotting the contours of your life.
And like the first explorers, sooner or later you have to contend with the blank spaces on the map. All the experiences you've never had. The part of you still aching to know what's out there. Eventually these questions take on a weight of their own, and begin looming over your everyday life.
All the billions of doors you had to close in order to take a single step forward. All the things you haven't done and may never get around to doing; all the risks that may or may not have been real; all the destinations you didn't buy a ticket to; all the lights you see in the distance that you can only wonder about; all the alternate histories you narrowly avoided; all the fantasies that stay dormant inside your head; everything you're giving up, to be where you are right now; the questions that you wrongly assumed were unanswerable.
It's strange how little of the universe we actually get to see. Strange how many assumptions we have to make just to get by, stuck in only one body, in only one place at a time. Strange how many excuses we've invented to explain why so much of life belongs in the background. Strange that any of us could ever feel at home on such an alien world.
We sketch monsters on the map because we find their presence comforting. They guard the edges of the abyss, and force us to look away; so we can live comfortably in the Known World, at least for a little while.
But if someone were to ask you on your deathbed what it was like to live here on Earth, perhaps the only honest answer would be, "I don't know. I passed through it once, but I've never really been there."
I don't know about you Reader, but for me, one of the most exciting things about life is how grand it is in terms of the possibilities it offers. All the books you could read, all the places you could visit, all the things you could be and do. As a child I looked at all this and marvelled. How beautiful life is!
There were a multitude of things that fascinated me, and I would dream of so many paths I could take in life, all the people I could be. I would wonder what it is like to be a writer. To be a musician. To be a scientist. To be a mathematician. To be a neurologist. I had a thirst for knowledge, for books, for places, for life itself.
Slowly, I started making choices. They would seem tiny at the moment, but they started crafting my path on the map. Every choice I made, that path got more defined. And I never looked back or second guessed myself, because every decision I took came from a place of passion.
After so many decisions, hundreds perhaps, or maybe even thousands, I see that path I have taken is so much more defined now. I have a story to tell, and I own the narrative--I am the protagonist, and there are several characters and chapters to it. But I also see the full impact of my choices now. I see how an entire world of experiences could rest just on one choice, and by choosing something, how I shut out all the million other possibilities, all the realities that could have been.
From a famous Robert Frost poem, which seems to hint at the same thing:
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I wonder about all the alternate realities I gave up just to inhabit this one. I wonder about the writer I will never be, about all the psychology I will never learn, all the books I will never get a chance to read, and all the places in the world that will remain just a name to me. I despair at the extraordinary magnificence of life, and the ironically small part of it that I get to experience. Onism, The Awareness of How Little of the World You'll Experience.
P.S: More details
Onism - n. the frustration of being stuck in just one body, that inhabits only one place at a time, which is like standing in front of the departures screen at an airport, flickering over with strange place names like other people's passwords, each representing one more thing you'll never get to see before you die-and all because, as the arrow on the map helpfully points out, you are here.
Video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrBlmpqh8T0
Transcript:
You are here. You were lost at first, but soon began sketching yourself a map of the world—plotting the contours of your life.
And like the first explorers, sooner or later you have to contend with the blank spaces on the map. All the experiences you've never had. The part of you still aching to know what's out there. Eventually these questions take on a weight of their own, and begin looming over your everyday life.
All the billions of doors you had to close in order to take a single step forward. All the things you haven't done and may never get around to doing; all the risks that may or may not have been real; all the destinations you didn't buy a ticket to; all the lights you see in the distance that you can only wonder about; all the alternate histories you narrowly avoided; all the fantasies that stay dormant inside your head; everything you're giving up, to be where you are right now; the questions that you wrongly assumed were unanswerable.
It's strange how little of the universe we actually get to see. Strange how many assumptions we have to make just to get by, stuck in only one body, in only one place at a time. Strange how many excuses we've invented to explain why so much of life belongs in the background. Strange that any of us could ever feel at home on such an alien world.
We sketch monsters on the map because we find their presence comforting. They guard the edges of the abyss, and force us to look away; so we can live comfortably in the Known World, at least for a little while.
But if someone were to ask you on your deathbed what it was like to live here on Earth, perhaps the only honest answer would be, "I don't know. I passed through it once, but I've never really been there."
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