Is there a word for the feeling of longing for a place you’ve never been? Probably German. I woke this morning from the deepest dreams I’ve had in years, and I can’t shake them.
Discussion
I had never considered this concept but found the word “fernweh” (German 😂) which translates to “farsickness”
Germans have already described everything! 😆
Amazing 🤣
Although, my quick translation says “wanderlust.” Not quite that.
I’m exploring this now too 😂 Found several search results. Here’s one explanation I found:
“The best way to understand fernweh is through analyzing exactly what it is not—homesickness. A familiar term and common feeling many have experienced at some point in time, homesickness is an acute longing for one’s home during a prolonged time in its absence. While homesickness can lead to distress and suffering, it is nonetheless, in most cases, a mendable ‘sickness’—we can always return home. Fernweh, or farsickness, is also a suffering, but is less clear cut and rectifiable. It is a consuming longing to be somewhere you’ve never been; an aching to be in a distant and unknown land, an ambiguous yearning for anything, anywhere else, as anyone else. But how do we go about searching for a place we’ve never been? How do we assuage a yearning, the source of which is unknown to us? And the most pertinent question remains: why do we ache for places we’ve never known?”
Ok. That nails it. 🙏🏼
I really like this concept
Stranger, still, I was saying to nostr:npub19pj6f0nc9q6xr26qe3g8m6xe3hwe0d6p6zcvf57cm3kayghjdj0slnlenu this morning that I have a fuzzy feeling of having felt this way before, but I can’t remember when.
Dreams, man. 🤯
💯 And I think maybe we can’t even realize it fully until we find it. This may sound cheesy, but it’s how I felt once I discovered Bitcoin and gained an understanding of how it works, what it is. Not a physical place in that case, but it was like finding a puzzle piece I knew was missing in the world but didn’t understand how/why/what.
That’s brilliant. To feel longing for an understanding that somehow was lying dormant.
💯💜
C. S. Lewis wrote about 'sehsucht' - a deep sense of longing - a related and delightful thing to think about.
"Hunger doesn't necessarily mean a man will get bread, but it's strong evidence that something like bread exists." (Paraphrase from memory.)
"God has put eternity in the heart of man..."
*sehnsucht
How do I disable auto translation because I meant to type sehnsucht but typo'd it
Love CS Lewis. And it absolutely makes sense in context of the Gospel and Second Coming of Jesus.
They always have word.
Yeah, Fernweh is the word I had suggested too.
