WOOOAHHH! That’s it!” I said when I came across the German word sehnsucht (ZEN-zookt). “That sums it all up!”
Sehnsucht means “longing,” “yearning,” or even “craving,” but it also carries implications of “intensely missing,” as when pining for something as if one’s life depended on it. The word hearkens to the need a person feels when addicted to hard drugs, an addiction so intense one’s entire being calls out for it.
The word also indicates the feeling that one’s life is unfinished or imperfec
