This One Goes Out to the Words I Love

Channeling the 90's. How could I not, what with the R.E.M. reference?

In my video today I discussed some words that I am quite fond of. I have to say, I really enjoyed making this video. I am thinking of continuing with this idea and making a series of videos dealing with vocabulary. Why? Because I am a "word nerd."

An observation I made after making today's video is this: I talk a lot about being lonely and feeling out of place. I feel like a broken record. Another recurring theme is time travel in order to fix my past. I am just a bundle of sunshine, aren't I?

As to the words that I talked about in my video, here are some more formal definitions since mine were totally off the cuff.

shtup

kvetch

somnambulist

saudade

unheimlichkeit

Mojo Jojo has informed me that "somnambulist" comes from the Latin for "sleep" and "to walk". I should have known that. I feel really dumb now.

Because I am feeling so terribly alone and isolated, of course I spent the most time on "unheimlichkeit", but I would like to say a few words about Freud's "unheimlich" or "uncanny." Unlike Heidegger, Freud's "unheimlich" had less to do with feeling lost and more to do with feeling creeped out. The word "unheimlich" translates to "unhomely" meaning the opposite of the home - something that is foreign. The home is where one is safe, and where things about one are kept safe and in some ways hidden. Freud's "unheimlich" is the feeling one gets when one sees that which should remain hidden.

This feeling often occurs when one encounters a person with a physical deformity - missing limbs and the like. You don't know how to react because you know something very private about this person simply by looking at them, and yet you don't know the details - the facts of the deformity remain hidden though the reality of the deformity is revealed. It gives the viewer a feeling of unease. We feel threatened and unsafe.

Freud's theory of the uncanny/unheimlich usually gets a lot more press than Heidegger's, but I think the latter is more applicable to the modern condition. That said, I really need to do something about my feeling of isolation, lest I become a psychological example of Freud's uncanny and start talking to myself in the street (another example of witnessing that which should remain hidden: mental illness.)