In my browsing online, I came across a tumblr blog online called the "Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows", which features original words created by a man. One of these words is called 'apomakrysmenophobia', and the meaning is as follows:
apomakrysmenophobia1
n. fear that your connections with people are ultimately shallow, that although your relationships feel congenial at the time, an audit of your life would produce an emotional safety deposit box of low-interest holdings and uninvested windfall profits, which will indicate you were never really at risk of joy, sacrifice or loss.
This word is very evident from what I've seen and experienced. Throughout our lives we interact with a lot of different people. Some of them are friendships whereas others are work related. From our interactions with these people, we sometimes end up taking them for granted, as if they were part of the background, the scenery. Sometimes we laugh, we cry, we get mad with them. But at times, we aren't really into what we're doing with them. Sometimes, we aren't touched or we don't let ourselves be affected by what touched them, what impacted them. We just nod and take our time with them for granted.
The scary thing is that when we look back at these times and we realize that we weren't really invested in what we went through, it feels so lonely. This is my take on what is called "the solitude of being". We end up just looking at our point of view, what we take from events, and our connections with people all go back to us. Maybe that's why we think that our connections with people are ultimately shallow.
The teachings that Levinas is espousing may provide an insight in order to escape this feeling of "apomakrysmenophobia". When we go outside of ourselves and not just dwell on our perspectives on things, we end up having a bigger perspective of things. We look at other people and invest our time and connect with them on a deeper level; we experience them as Face. This goes beyond the superficial but relates to the person as a fellow human being. We choose to be responsible for the Other and do our best to be there for them. Of course if we do this, we are putting a lot of faith and trust in them, and they may not necessarily reciprocate. However in doing this, we form meaningful relationships with people and we understand who we are more clearly.
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1Koenig, John. Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. N.p.. Web. 13 Mar 2014.
