Koinaphobia: The Fear That You’ve Lived an Ordinary Life
While you’re in it, life seems epic. Fiery, tenuous, and unpredictable. But when you look back over your story or try to put it down on paper, you can see more of it at once than ever before—yet it seems somehow diminished. Humble. Almost quaint.
So you begin scanning your life, looking for something exciting or beautiful. You see an ordinary house on an ordinary street. It seems smaller than you remember. You once had wild dreams, obstacles, and risks looming around you, but now those look smaller, too. You remember giants, goddesses, and villains, but now all you see are ordinary people assembled in their tiny classrooms and workspaces, each moving around in little steps, like tokens on a game board. And in these ordinary moments, you find a reflection of your own life, a connection to the shared human experience.
As you reflect, you realize that no matter how many times you rolled the dice, these little moves were always here and there. Do a little work. Take a little rest. Make a little friend. Throw a little party. Feel a little boredom. Have a tiny rebellion. There are so many of these token moments that you could have sworn were supposed to represent something more significant. You keep adding them all up as if there were something you must’ve forgotten to count, some stash of glory that fell off the back of a truck. This process of reflection leads you to a deeper understanding of your life.
You may well adore the life you have for everything it is. You know it isn’t groundbreaking, but you wouldn’t change a thing. Still, you can’t shake the feeling that something is missing. This feeling of longing, of a puzzle with a missing piece, is a part of the human experience.
Maybe the trouble is, you were never really “in it” to begin with. Maybe when you first started building the life you wanted, you put so much thought in
Ancient Greek κοινός (koinós), common, ordinary, stripped of specialness + -φοβία (-phobía), fear. Pronounced “key-noh-foh-bee-uh.”