Sunday, May 11, 2008

365* New Words a Year [Merriam Webster] (Workman Publishing 5/11/8: cathexis

cathexis n : investment of mental or emotional energy in a person, object, or idea
The DYK: "You might suspect that cathexis derives etymologically from a word for emotion, but in actuality the key concept is holding. Cathexis comes to us by way of New Latin . . . from the Greek word kathexis, meaning 'holding'. . . . Cathexis first appeared in print in 1922 in a book about Freud's psychological theories (which also established the plural as cathexes, as is consistent with Latin), and is still often used in scientific and specifically psychological contexts." Your cathexis in down-on-his-luck neighbor might be the best thing you'll ever do. Rating 10/10 good Samaritans.
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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. --Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"