Toska

“Toska - noun /ˈtō-skə/ - Russian word roughly translated as sadness, melancholia, lugubriousness.

"No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”

― Vladimir Nabokov

I love discovering a new word. Especially when that word puts a face on, or at least helps outline the form of a deeply complex thought/emotion/concept. Words are the very things that allow us to crystallize the abstract world at our feet. It is even more intriguing when this word is foreign to our own vernaculars. We see more clearly that no one language can possibly encompass all the shades and hues of human experience. I imagine this can be a nightmare for translators, yet it is also the reason I envy multilingual individuals.

What then is "Toska"? The English language lacks a word for this complex concept. Vladimir Nabokov is noted as being the one who most eloquently described it in English terms. 

Read the quote above. You can most certainly relate to it on one or many levels. You may have felt Toska at some point and been conscious of it or, you may have also experienced it and not been aware what was winding its way through your spiritual being. You may be feeling it now. "Depressed" does not do it justice- it is too vague. "Existential Crisis" might fit the mold slightly better, but it is underpinned with the might of a philosophical ocean of ideas whose currents pull you away from what the Russians intended.

I think the beauty of this word (of course, understanding that 'beauty' is an odd way to describe such a soul-wrenching thing) is that its vibration is common to us all, regardless of what language or culture we were born into. I see a progression to how Nabokov describes it and will do my best to describe it now.

Think about it as a spiritual or emotional spectrum:

Boredom <---------------Yearning-----------------> Great Spiritual Anguish

Then think about less as a spectrum and more as a circle, which doesn't always flow in the same direction. All meanings can be present. Some may be highlighted at different times based the flux of the mood. Boredom can lead to indescribable yearning. This yearning can gnaw at your spiritual core until it becomes torment. Conversely, the starting point can be spiritual torment or anguish. This can bend to a restlessness to change, yet the yearning is aimless. Spiritual fuel is burnt and the futility of it leads to surrender. Ennui then takes hold.

This is Toska.

The hindrance of language and culture might be at the very core of Toska. The unease sets in when our words falls short. When we want with no object in mind; When we plop our happiness down in another time or place; When we cannot put a face on what is causing that unsettling soulache; That is when Toska rears its ugly head.