You know me: I love discovering new words. How’s this one: torschlusspanik? It’s a German word (no surprise there!) that literally means “gate-shut-panic.” It describes the anxiety, urgency, or panic a person feels when he/she realizes that time is running out to achieve a life goal, or to seize an opportunity, or to find a partner before some metaphorical window closes. We’ve probably all been in torschlusspanik at one time or another; we just didn’t know how to say it! Leave it to the canny Germans to give us yet another unpronounceable word.
The term dates back to the Middle Ages when a medieval walled city would close its heavy gates for the night and any late-arriving travelers would be locked outside, leaving them exposed to the elements, thieves, or wild animals. (Lions, tigers, and bears: Oh my! That might well give me a megadose of gate-shut-panic.) Today, however, torschlusspanik has a more psychological connotation, representing the dread of diminishing opportunities as we age, whether that involves having a child, advancing a career, finding a life partner, or, in my case, ever making a hole-in-one on the golf course. It’s very similar to the English concept of a “midlife crisis” or what Gen Zers might call FOMO: “fear of missing out.” I will say this to all you Gen Zers out there: Bless you! FOMO is a lot easier to say than torschlusspanik!
Torschlusspanik is the sound of the galloping hoofbeats of time, or of Captain Hook’s ticking crocodile. It’s that feeling that comes in the wee hours of the morning when you realize you’re closing in on yet another birthday and you still haven’t made your father proud, let alone won the Nobel Peace Prize. It’s the sound of those studded medieval gates slamming shut and the heavy wooden drawbar crashing into place. It’s not so much the remembrance of things past as it is the dread that strikes when I can’t remember what my wife wanted me to get at the grocery store.
Torschlusspanik captures all of our complex, existential anxieties into a single highly relatable, albeit unpronounceable, word. Mind you, I don’t speak German, but if I did, I would find a way to drop torschlusspanik into every conversation I could if only to impress my Freunde in the Bierhalle. Alas, that probably wouldn’t have much effect on them because if they’re as old as I am, they’re probably deaf and wouldn’t be able to hear me over the tubas in the oompah band anyway.
I guess the best antidote to torschlusspanik is to just relax and do the best we can with the time we have, Some nightwatchman would surely lose his job if not his head if he didn’t get the gates closed at nightfall, so we either must learn to deal with the barbarians and the wild animals or get inside before closing time and get a good night’s sleep. There’s always tomorrow to win the Nobel Prize or to make a hole-in-one, for that matter.
I’ll be right back.
