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The Inner Life

How people named longing, sadness, fear and wanting.

The names we give our feelings preserve older ideas about the body, memory and the imagination. These words show how the explanations changed while the feelings remained familiar.

In approximate historical order, from the origins and events behind the words.

  1. melancholy (n.)black bile
  2. desire (n.)longing, absence, and perhaps the stars
  3. nightmare (n.)once a creature
  4. nostalgia (n.)once a diagnosis

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