Sehnsucht

You take two parts intense desire to do something. To that, add one part mild apathy often manifested as nonchalance. To this, add a splash directionless. And bing! Hey presto, you’ve just created your very own me.

In German – why do Germans have all the good words? – there’s a word called Sehnsucht (pronounced zen-zucht). It means to long for something. Some unknown thing. Some thing that you know you want, but you don’t know what it is.

Psychologists use Sehnsucht as a way of putting a definition on the thought or feeling of a part of life which is unfinished or imperfect. Whatever that may be. Perhaps it’s a painting you’ve always wanted to paint, but never painted. Or a song you’ve wanted to sing, but never… sung? Or a… you get the point.

“2024 is the year I learn something new,” I said to myself on the 31st of December 2023. Out came the pen and the paper. I’m ready to write down everything I want to learn. I even write a nice title and everything. Ideas for things to learn… in big, bold letters.

But then… nothing.

I sit, the ink slowly staining the page as the ball-point rests atop the paper. My mind is blank.

I couldn’t think of a single thing I had even a passing interest in. Nothing. This is, I think, a symptom of the one-part-mild-apathy in the Me recipe.

On the one hand, I know that I want to do something new, but on the other, I’ve no interest in doing anything. I still, right now, typing this, can’t think of a single thing I want to try, learn, do, experiment with, explore, play with, watch, read, or listen to.

It’s a legitimate issue.

Often, I’ll look at all my friends doing things, experimenting with hobbies, talking about films they’ve watched, stuff like that, and wonder if there’s something fundamentally wrong with me. According to my therapist, there isn’t. Also, according to her, this feeling will go away at some point. Let’s agree to disagree there.

Why do they all have an interest in things, I think, but I’m here, basically a blank slate of a human who’s somehow made it to 27 years old with no interests or hobbies? If we’re keeping score, it’s Me 1, Therapist 0 with that.

I had a hobby once though. It was graphic design. I was legitimately excited to learn more about the topic, to keep up with the trends, to try new things. But then it became my job… or at least part of it. As is the way with monetising an interest, it morphed into a chore. So now, I don’t want to do what once was my hobby because it feels like work.

The merciless clutches of capitalism have taken my passion away! Is perhaps what a more politically minded person would yell into the ether. A movie would put this scene outside, in a thunderstorm. The protagonist kneeling on sodden grass, screaming up to the unrelenting black sky.

It would be his dark moment at the end of act two. From here, there’d be some kinda montage, where he’d try a bunch of different things, resulting in our hero finding the hobby he’d been looking for. Sehnsucht banished. Long-awaited sequel no longer needed.

But unfortunately, to quote Cinema Paradiso, life isn’t like in the movies. Life… is much harder.

Perhaps the antidote to this is to just force myself to do things? Treat myself like a Sim who simply has no choice by to try new things until he finds something he likes?

Who knows.