Quotes from John Koenig

After so many years wondering what kind of person you were going to become one day, somewhere you forgot that this question actually has an answer, and that 'one day' will eventually arrive. If it hasn't already.

Another part of you is already an old man, looking back on things. Waiting at the door for his granddaughter who's trying to make her way home for a visit. You are two people still separated by an ocean of time, part of you bursting to talk about what you saw, part of you longing to tell you what it means.

As a kid you run around so fast, the world around you seems to stand still. A summer vacation can stretch on for an eternity. With each birthday we circle back and cross the same point around the sun. We wish each other 'many happy returns.' But soon you feel the circle begin to tighten, and you realize it's a spiral, and you're already halfway through...

Of all the different ways we reassure ourselves, the least comforting is this: it's already too late.

One day you'll remember this moment, and it'll mean something very different. Maybe you'll cringe and laugh, or brim with pride, aching to return. Or notice some detail hidden in the scene, a future landmark making its first appearance or discreetly taking its final bow.

Strange how strong the instinct is, to see something incredible, and reach for a camera. As if to lend it some credibility, to prove that it's real, that 'I WAS HERE.

The past is a foreign country, and we're only tourists. We can't expect to understand the locals, or why they do what they do.

We like to think that every moment has potential, that there's something transcendent hidden all around, that if you'd only stop to seize the day, you could hold onto it and carry it with you. But the truth is, most of life is forgotten instantly, almost as it's happening. Chances are that even a day like today will slip through your fingers and dissolve into oblivion, washed clean by the tides.

We should consider the idea that youth is not actually wasted on the young. That their dramas are no more grand than they should be. That their emotions make perfect sense, once you adjust for inflation. For someone going through adolescence, life feels epic and tragic simply because it is.

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.

We take it for granted that life moves forward. But you move as a rower moves, facing backwards—you can see where you've been, but not where you're going. And your boat is steered by a younger version of you. It's hard not to wonder what life would be like facing the other way…

Your life is a highlight reel: a gradual search for a handful of memories.

Emotions are none of these. As a result, there's a huge blind spot in the language of emotion, vast holes in the lexicon that we don't even know we're missing. We have thousands of words for different types of finches and schooners and historical undergarments, but only a rudimentary vocabulary to capture the delectable subtleties of the human experience.

Such is life. Some days you wake up in Kansas, and some days in Oz. Sometimes the world feels pretty much stuck in place, and you've made your peace with that. Why waste time on silly pipe dreams, when there are socks to darn and pigs to feed? At other times, you look around and see how exciting the world can be, how flexible and arbitrary things are, how easy it might be to cast aside your old life and get to work building the one you really want.

etherness n. the wistful feeling of looking around at a gathering of loved ones, all too aware that even though the room is filled with warmth and laughter now, it won't always be this way-that the coming years will steadily break people away into their own families, or see them pass away one by one, until there comes a time you look back and try to imagine what it feels like to have everyone together in the same place.

anemoia nostalgia for a time you never experienced.

harmonoia n. an itchy sense of dread when life feels just a hint too peaceful—when everyone seems to get along suspiciously well, with an eerie stillness that makes you want to brace for the inevitable collapse, or burn it down yourself. From harmony + paranoia. Pronounced "hahr

onism n. the awareness of how little of the world you'll experience

koinophobia the fear that you've lived an ordinary life.

harke n. a painful memory that you look back upon with unexpected fondness, even though you remember having dreaded it at the time; a tough experience that has since been overridden by the pride of having endured it, the camaraderie of those you shared it with, or the satisfaction of having a good story to tell. From hark back, a command spoken to hunting dogs to retrace their course so they can pick up a lost scent. Pronounced "hahrk.

the wends n. frustration that you're not enjoying an experience as much as you should, even something you've worked for years to attain, which prompts you to plug in various thought combinations to try for anything more than static emotional blankness, as if your heart had been accidentally demagnetized by a surge of expectations.

the wends n. the frustration that you're not enjoying an experience as much as you should, even something you've worked for years to attain, which prompts you to plug in various thought combinations to try for anything more than static emotional blankness, as if your heart had been accidentally demagnetized by a surge of expectations.

anoscetia the anxiety of not knowing "the real you.

fitching v. intr. compulsively turning away from works of art you find frustratingly, nauseatingly good-wanting to shut off the film and leave the theater, or devour a book in maddening little chunks, because it resonates at precisely the right frequency to rattle you to your core, which makes it mildly uncomfortable to be yourself.