Strikhedonia: “The pleasure of being able to say ‘to hell with it’.”

ROOTS: “strik”= appears to be an antiquated form of the verb “to strike,” which originally meant “to go, to proceed in a new direction,” a sense we still use when we “strike out” for uncharted territory.  “hedonia”=pleasure

Strikhedonia may be a made-up word popularized on many blog sites as it does not appear in the Oxford English Dictionary.  The concept may be similar to another Greek word, eleutheromania, from “eleutheria”=freedom and ‘mania” an extreme attachment to a behavior or feeling or obsession, which translates as “an extreme and irresistible desire for freedom.”  Traveler blogs are rampant with the word as it encapsulates the feelings of people stuck in soul-sucking routines who finally get up from their boring 9-5 jobs and say “to hell with it; I’m escaping.”  It is similar to another word in Greek “hodophilia” which translates to “the love of roads” in other words love of travel and going places.

Strikhedonia is the word to describe what happens in “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” where the protagonist, a lowly office worker, has dreams of adventure and quits his job to travel the world.  I believe this word was coined in the 20th century as a reaction to the stifling office culture that breeds conformity, obedience, and routine.  The FOMO phenomenon leads to Strikhedonia. Others translate the term as the pleasure you get from saying “F*** it all.”

WORKS CONSULTED

http://www.word-detective.com/052206C.html

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