Exulansis: A Word for MKs
Exulansis: ( n ) the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it. (John Koenig, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows) When I first came back from Brasil, I used to talk about it all the time. It was all I knew, and it was everything that I loved. My longing for everyone to understand what I had experienced and what my views were was only surpassed by my limited ability to explain it. How do you explain a life where people don't own cars but own boats? How do you explain the strange smashing of languages and quotes that your siblings and missionary kids friends understand intuitively? How do you explain your aversion to little things that don't bother anyone else: the way the lights of the city never die, the seeming wastefulness at every meal, and the repetitive, flimsy nature of worship songs at church? You don't. Or maybe, like me, you try, and it is so hard and frustrating to hit the wall of collective mis