I came across a fascinating article about words which had fallen out of fashion. Biophilia – love of life was one of them. This is what the author wrote:
this word is probably best known as the title of Icelandic singer Bjork’s seventh studio album. Biophilia and its counterpart necrophilia were coined in the 19th century as technical terms in psychology… Biophilia…has remained fairly restricted to technical discussions in psychoanalysis. Nonetheless, its literal meaning – the love of life – suggests a broader human need or desire to connect with nature and living things.
I was talking to someone the other day about how I default too often to particular words and have a thesaurus at hand for when I want to find a better word. I feel blessed to be loving life at the moment for all sorts of reasons and it is good to have a word to describe it. For me joy is the emotion I most experience in relation to biophilia and find myself smiling, home alone, doing all sorts of things. Life has not always been like this, there have been many difficult challenges over the years where it has felt much more like I was plodding through life like walking into a very strong wind. But I remain grateful through each season of life as there is always something I can express gratitude for even in the midst of lament for other things. Birthday week has been a particular time of biophilia this year.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/five-life-affirming-words-we-should-bring-back-into-use?utm_source=pocket-newtab-global-en-GB link to the full article if you want to discover some other words to reclaim! Picture one used in article and used it here as so evocative – credit Kobby Mendez | Unsplash
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