Torschlusspanik | Karen Kao
Torschlusspanik is one of those wonderful German coinages that envisions an entire universe in a single word. The South African artist William Kentridge defines it as: The panic of closing doors. The fear of opening one door rather than another, and hearing it slam behind you, once you have made your decision; but maybe that decision is the wrong one, so you would rather stand paralysed in front of three doors to avoid making it. Torschlusspanik. William Kentridge in interview with Peter Asden, "The art of war" for The Financial Times, 7/8 July 2018. Sandy Horvath-Dori from Grand Junction, CO, USA [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)] Germans associate Torschlusspanik with the passage of time: a midlife crisis, a biological clock ticking, career stagnation. We've all felt that fear, even when we were still young. No one wants to be left behind. We all want to be invited to the cool kids' party. Yet the thought of having to make a cho...