Found in Translation: Engulfed by ‘Degrassé’

On one sleepless summer night, you decided to look at the sky for a bit and relish that the constellations are bright as ever once again. From deep thoughts, you get lost looking into the abyss, drawn into the vastness of the universe. The stars are lightyears away from you and it's a miracle you get to see them twinkle.

Ahh, how big and beautiful, you think, overwhelmed by the great expanse. We believe you've experienced such a feeling, dear artist. This feeling is called degrassé.

Degrassé is an English word that was made by wordsmith John Koenig. In his famous Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, degrassé is:

"Degrassé. adj. entranced and unsettled by the vastness of the universe, experienced in a jolt of recognition that the night sky is not just a wallpaper but a deeply foreign ocean whose currents are steadily carrying off all other castaways, who share our predicament but are already well out of earshot—worlds and stars who would’ve been lost entirely except for the scrap of light they were able to fling out into the dark, a message in a bottle that’s only just now washing up in the Earth’s atmosphere, an invitation to a party that already ended a million years ago."

We'd like to think this is what painter Vincent Van Gogh felt as well as he brushed the moving night sky of Starry Night. so captivated by the night, he was able to put color and life out of darkness. When we're in such a mood, only then do we begin to appreciate and wonder about our world and all its complexities, leaving us feeling a minute part of a bigger picture.

Maybe you'd like to feel this way again by loading up your camera with the highest light sensitivity as possible, just to capture the colors of the universe and the glimpses of celestial bodies that we cannot see through the naked eye.

2018-07-15 #culture #found-in-translation #degrasse