On Reading the Dictionary

Wait! Stay on here for a sec! As boring as this sounds, you'd be surprised.

Pictured: An afternoon activity.

Recently, I came across the below image on Reddit or Facebook or something. As I was reading it, I found that there were several emotions that I had before, but didn't realize was common enough to have a word. And some of the feelings that were listed below were hard to put my finger on.

Pictured: Some interesting words you might not have known exist.

In 1984, one of the primary ways that the all-controlling government retained control over the populous was the invention of "newspeak" (I've written briefly on this topic before, you should check it out!). In short, newspeak was an extremely pared down version of English. For example, words like "better" or "best" become something like "plusgood". By taking out the nuance and vagueness of language, the totalitarian government was able to stop dissent before it occurred by taking away the ability of people to conceptualize dissent because there was not a word for it.

The same works in the opposite direction. By increasing vocabulary, you expand your ability to conceptualize feelings or other aspects of the world. And it doesn't matter whether you remember the actual word or not. Just knowing there is a word for a certain feeling/item is enough.

So, you don't have to read the dictionary for words you already know. That would be boring. But skim through and find some words you don't know. Adding these concepts to your vocabulary can help you fully realize your own feelings and other aspects of life.