Definition
Exulansis, noun. The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it.
The word belongs to John Koenig, from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. I did not invent it. I found it the way you find a key that fits a lock you have been carrying your whole life.
In my own words, the ones I said out loud this morning: exulansis is when we stop trying to explain ourselves — not because we have been understood, but because we recognize that we are not going to be understood. That no more words are going to help convey the thought we are trying to convey.
Etymology
Koenig built it from the Latin exulans: exiled. Wandering. Banished.
Exulans is also the species name of the wandering albatross — Diomedea exulans — the bird that stays aloft over open ocean for years at a time, crossing enormous distances, rarely landing.
The word for giving up on being understood has a bird hiding inside it. I built an entire framework out of birds before I knew that. The concept precedes the word. The convergence arrives later, as confirmation, not source.
What Exulansis Does Not Mean
It does not mean shyness. It does not mean introversion. It does not mean you ran out of things to say.
It does not mean the thought was wrong. The thought is usually the most right thing in the room. Exulansis is a verdict on the channel, not the content.
And it does not have to mean defeat. There is a fork inside this word — the stopping that is borne from sorrow, and the stopping that is borne from agency. Which one you are holding is the subject of its own entry.
The Card
EXULANSIS — When more words will not carry more meaning.
Play this card instead of the paragraph.