The fear that everything has already been done...
by John Koenig, from his Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: For lack of a better word a compendium of made-up words. Each original definition aims to fill a hole in the language, to give a name to an emotion we all feel but don’t have a word for.
vemödalen
- n. the frustration of photographing something amazing when
thousands of identical photos already exist--the same sunset, the
same waterfall, the same curve of a hip, the same closeup of an
eye--which can turn a unique subject into something hollow and pulpy
and cheap, like a mass-produced piece of furniture you happen to have
assembled yourself.
ETYMOLOGYFrom Swedish vemod, "tender sadness, pensive melancholy" + Vemdalen, the name of a Swedish town (which is IKEA's product naming convention). The umlaut isn't proper Swedish, but I liked the idea of a little astonished face (ö) sitting in the middle of the word. And also, c'mon, you can't have an IKEA metaphør without some sort of diåcritïc.
TRANSCRIPT
"You
are unique. And there are seven billion others, just as unique as
you. Each of us is different, with some new angle on the world. But
what does it mean if the lives we're busy shaping by hand, all end up
looking the same-easily replaced by a thousand identical others?
Vemödalen
So we all spread out, looking for scraps of frontier, trying to capture something special, something personal. As if we're afraid of being captured ourselves-so quickly pegged for exactly what we are-so easily mistaken for someone ordinary, just like everyone else.
It should be a comfort that we're not so different, that our perspectives so neatly align, that these same images keep showing up, again and again.
It's alright if we tell the same jokes we've all heard before, it's alright if we keep remaking the same movies. it's alright if we keep saying the same phrases to each other, as if they had never been said before.
"The powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse." And you and I and seven billion others will leave our mark on this world we've inherited. But if, in the end, we find ourselves with nothing left to say, nothing new to add, idly tracing outlines left by others long ago, it will be as if we weren't here at all.
This too has been said many times before. The powerful play goes on. And when you get your cue, you say your line.