The Book of Human Emotions: From Ambiguphobia to Umpty - 154 Words from Around the World for How We Feel - Tiffany Watt Smith 2016

Man

Start a new career. Move to a different city. Become a writer or learn to play the violin. It’s often hard to explain why we might want to do something like this, only that we experience a profound calling, a feeling that we must. In Hindi, this deepest level of wanting is called man (pronounced mun, it is a colloquial shortening of the Hindi word for intention or longing, manorath). Like the hunger felt before you know what you want to eat, man is always there waiting to form itself into a desire—and when it does, it brings a strange clarity. Sitting somewhere between head and heart, man is a visceral yearning backed up by the recognition that what we desire reflects our innermost self. And it is widely acknowledged to be nonnegotiable. According to writer Preti Taneja, “No one can argue with another’s man.” Sometimes what we desire is incomprehensible to our family and friends—but if it’s your man? That’s “a full-stop to any conversation,” she says.

See also: DESIRE.