Language is a bit of a trick, isn't it? We spend our whole lives talking, texting, and thinking in sentences, yet the moment someone asks you to explain exactly what a specific moment felt like, the engine stalls. You end up saying "it was good" or "it was intense." But those aren't really the right words. They're just placeholders. Finding what its like in words is essentially the process of trying to bridge the gap between a private internal feeling and a public external explanation. It’s hard. It’s messy. Sometimes, it feels completely impossible.
Philosophers have a specific name for this: Qualia. It’s the "redness" of red or the specific, sharp sting of a paper cut. You can describe the physics of light or the biology of nerve endings all day long, but that isn't the experience.
The Struggle for What Its Like in Words
Why do we even try? Honestly, it’s about connection. If I can’t tell you what it’s like to stand on a cliffside in Ireland with the salt spray hitting my face, then I’m alone in that memory. I want you to feel the cold mist too. But language is a limited toolset. It’s like trying to paint a sunset using only a box of eight crayons. You’ve got the basics, but the gradients—the subtle shifts from burnt orange to bruised purple—get lost in the transition.
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We rely on metaphors. We have to. When we search for what its like in words, we usually reach for "it was like..." because direct description fails us. If you say a heartbreak felt like a "heavy weight on your chest," you aren't being literal. There isn't a physical 50-pound plate sitting on your sternum. But the metaphor communicates a truth that "I am sad" simply cannot touch.
The Role of Sensory Language
Think about the last time you smelled woodsmoke on a crisp October night. How do you describe that? You could mention the chemical compounds of burning oak. You could talk about the temperature of the air. But to really capture the essence, you have to talk about the way the smell makes your chest tighten with a weird mix of nostalgia and comfort.
Expert writers, the ones who really nail the "vibe" of a place, don't just use adjectives. They use verbs that carry weight. They don't say the wind was "loud." They say the wind scoured the house. See the difference? One is a measurement; the other is a feeling.
When Words Fail Us Entirely
There’s a concept in linguistics called "hypocognition." It’s what happens when we don't have a word for a specific feeling, so we struggle to even process that the feeling exists. Take the word saudade in Portuguese. It describes a deep, melancholic longing for something or someone that is absent, often with the knowledge that they might never return. English doesn't have a perfect equivalent. Before you learn that word, you might just feel "weirdly lonely," but once you have the word, the experience crystalizes.
It changes the shape of your reality.
This is why poetry exists. People think poetry is just about rhyming or being flowery, but it's actually a desperate attempt to use language's rhythm and sound to bypass the logical brain. It’s an attempt to find what its like in words by using the sound of the words themselves. A short, staccato sentence feels frantic. A long, winding sentence that meanders through three commas and a semicolon feels like a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Real Examples of the "Unsayable"
- The Overview Effect: This is what astronauts feel when they look at Earth from space. They describe a total cognitive shift—a feeling of intense fragility and unity. Most say that no matter how many books they read beforehand, nothing prepared them for the actual sight.
- Grief: Ask anyone who has lost a parent or a spouse. They’ll tell you that "sadness" is a pathetic word for the actual experience. It’s more like an amputation. It’s a permanent change in the physics of your world.
- Flow State: When you’re so deep in a task that time disappears. You aren't "concentrating." You've basically ceased to exist as an individual, and you've become the task itself.
How to Get Better at Describing Your World
If you want to get better at putting your life into language, you have to stop being lazy with your vocabulary. That sounds harsh, but it’s true. We default to "fine," "cool," and "weird." Those words are the death of description.
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Start by looking at the edges of the feeling. Don't look at the center. If you're angry, don't write about the anger. Write about the way your vision narrowed or the way your palms felt suddenly hot. Look for the physical manifestations.
Specificity Is the Secret Sauce
I once read an interview with a food critic who said he never used the word "delicious." Why? Because it tells the reader nothing. A peach is delicious, but so is a steak. They are delicious in completely different ways. One is "fuzzy, dripping, and floral," while the other is "charred, metallic, and savory."
The more specific you get, the more universal the feeling becomes. It’s a paradox. By describing the exact, tiny details of your experience, you make it easier for someone else to relate it to their experience.
The Science of Communication Gaps
Neuroscience suggests that our brains process emotions in the limbic system, which is a much older part of the brain than the centers responsible for language (Broca's area and Wernicke's area). Basically, our feelings are running on old hardware that wasn't originally designed to talk to the new "language" hardware. There is a literal physical lag.
This is why we "fumble for words." Your brain is literally trying to translate an ancient, non-verbal signal into a modern, coded system of sounds and symbols. Sometimes the translation software glitches.
Cultural Differences in Expression
What its like in words also depends heavily on where you grew up. In some cultures, expressing internal states is discouraged, leading to a more "externalized" vocabulary focused on actions and duties. In others, there is an almost obsessive focus on the "inner self."
For example, the Japanese word Tsundoku describes the act of buying books and letting them pile up without reading them. We’ve all done it. But having the word makes the experience a shared joke rather than a personal failing. It gives the feeling a home.
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Actionable Steps for Expressive Writing
You don't need to be a novelist to improve how you communicate your internal world. It’s a skill you can practice.
- The "No-Emotion" Rule: Try to describe a memory without using a single "feeling" word (happy, sad, angry). Only describe what you saw, heard, and felt physically. You'll find that the emotion emerges naturally through the imagery.
- Use Micro-Sensory Details: Instead of saying the room was "messy," mention the single, crusty coffee mug sitting on a stack of unpaid bills. That tiny detail tells a much bigger story about the state of the room.
- Read Widely: The more "feeling words" you encounter in literature, the larger your toolkit becomes. Read writers like Joan Didion or James Baldwin—masters of pinning down the exact temperature of a moment.
- Slow Down the Moment: When you're trying to explain what its like in words, slow the "film" of your memory down frame by frame. What happened in the first second? What about the third?
Language will never be perfect. It's a bridge, not the destination. But the better you get at building that bridge, the less lonely you'll feel in your own head. You’ll find that when you finally find the right sequence of syllables, the person listening will nod, their eyes will light up, and they’ll say, "Yeah. I know exactly what you mean." That's the whole point.
Ultimately, capturing experience in words is an act of translation. You are taking the raw, pulsing data of being alive and trying to turn it into something someone else can digest. It’s a gift you give to other people—and to yourself.
By practicing specificity and leaning into the weird, small details of your daily life, you move past the "good/bad" binary and into the rich, complex reality of being human. Stop settling for placeholders. The right words are out there, even if they take a little while to find.