Explaining Sehnsucht

[Gawen]

Perhaps, then, the concept is alien to me. The closest I think I can get to this concept is when I'm hungry but don't know what I want. Of course, I know what I want is some sort of food, but can't make up my mind what type of food to eat. But it's not the same as 'Sehnsucht'. Sehnsucht must be that 'thing' that people say "There's something missing in my life but I don't know what". I do not suffer from this.

Am I the only one who enjoys (<--for lack of a better word) Sehnsucht? Maybe I am misunderstanding the concept from everyone else because I don't think it is a form of suffering.... exactly.

If the word explains the feeling I think it does, an empty sort of longing, then I'm with Sophus that a sort of longing melancholia can be a rather 'enlightening' even enervating feeling. It's the sort of feeling one has just before one gets an urge to write some soppy piece of prose or poetry.

That almost sounds like writers cramp...*chucklin*.
My translators all define the word as simple "longing".

[Tank]

If the word explains the feeling I think it does, an empty sort of longing, then I'm with Sophus that a sort of longing melancholia can be a rather 'enlightening' even enervating feeling. It's the sort of feeling one has just before one gets an urge to write some soppy piece of prose or poetry.

That almost sounds like writers cramp...*chucklin*.
My translators all define the word as simple "longing".

Longing does not quite have the subtlety that I think the word has in the native German. Did I just put 'subtle' in a sentence describing the German language