Sehnsucht

I learned a new word last week--sehnsucht. It is a German word that has no direct translation into English. I ran it across it as I was reading fellowship applications. One of the applicants was proposing to study why older people are more susceptible to fraud. Her theory was that older people have a greater positivity bias, they are more likely to see something as having a positive outcome, so they are more likely to fall for the pitch of a con artist. But, in looking over her qualifications, I saw that she had many articles on "sehnsucht." Curious, I had to google it (of course). According to Wikipedia (for what that is worth) sehnsucht describes a deep emotional state only literally translated as longing, or perhaps a kind of intensely missing. The word can sometimes, apparently, be used to describe a desire for some not quite identifiable, but yet still familiar place. Perhaps like "home." The word is similar in that sense to nostalgia, or even homesickness.

I'm thinking I like this word. It seems to fit an emotion that I sometimes have, a longing or desire for a particular state of being or feeling, for a return to a scene or sense from my past. I wonder how old you have to be to experience sehnsucht? I sometimes hear my sons talk wistfully of some past experience or event. Are those the feelings that build to sehnsucht? Again, according to Wikipedia, sehnsucht was used by C.S. Lewis to describe a joy, almost a sense of hope and yearning which is sweeter than the fulfillment.