Pothos is the Greek word for missing someone who is somewhere else.1 It had a name 2,400 years before anyone reread old messages.
Pothos is the Greek word for missing someone who is somewhere else.1 It had a name 2,400 years before anyone reread old messages.
Rereading the old messages? The Greeks had a word for that feeling: pothos, the longing for someone who isn’t here.
In Plato’s Cratylus, Socrates takes the word apart and hears “somewhere” in it. The one you long for is somewhere else, not with you. It’s the ache of an empty chair.
Plato, Cratylus 420a.
The same line of Plato has a second word, himeros: wanting someone who is right there in the room.Send one line today to someone who is somewhere else.
1 Plato, Cratylus 420a
