In case you were wondering, here is the complete list of human emotions as listed by Wikipedia:

Acceptance · Affection · Alertness · Ambivalence · Anger · Angst · Annoyance · Anticipation · Anxiety · Apathy · Awe · Resentment · Boredom · Calmness · Compassion · Contempt · Contentment · Confusion · Curiosity · Desire · Depression · Disappointment · Disgust · Doubt · Ecstasy · Embarrassment · Empathy · Emptiness · Enthusiasm · Envy · Epiphany · Euphoria · Fanaticism · Fear · Frustration · Gratification · Gratitude · Grief · Guilt · Happiness · Hatred · Homesickness · Hope · Hopelessness · Horror · Hostility · Humiliation · Hysteria · Interest · Inspiration · Jealousy · Kindness · Limerence · Loneliness · Love · Lust · Melancholia · Panic · Patience · Pity · Pride · Rage · Regret · Remorse · Repentance · Righteous indignation · Sadness · Schadenfreude · Self-pity · Shame · Shyness · Sympathy · Suffering · Surprise · Wonder · Worry

I've been sitting here at my desk trying to think of an emotion they've missed (as if the millions of people who obsessively check Wikipedia for mistakes haven't already covered that) and of course, it's difficult. I've only come up with synonyms or approximations, which makes me feel strangely reduced. Malaise... boredom. Joy... happiness. That odd and silly feeling teenage girls get for a pop star they've never met (okay, the feeling I got for Taylor Hanson in middle school... okay, high school)... limerence. (Also embarrassment.) Everything I've ever felt is neatly covered in that 3x10" box. Wonderful. (Self-pity.)

I use the term 'strangely reduced' in not necessarily a negative way, if that's possible. (Emptiness, doubt.) How can we have the right to feel that what we feel is unique, if they've been experienced by everyone else well enough to sum it all up in a Wikipedia category footer? (Angst.) But of course it's wonderful in a way. Within that snug, straightforward list are the tools that should be sufficient to feel empathy for everyone else on the globe. (Wonder, inspiration.) Instead, we put up walls between us that in effect make the enemy inhuman and incapable of feeling the same emotions we do. (Apathy. [Hey, where's denial?])

Scrolling through their links, though, I find that some of these emotions require pages and pages of descriptive prose, examples, footnotes, links, controversy, and thousands of edits to describe themselves properly (hope). If something so simple as a single emotion, by itself, unmarred by other, often inappropriate emotions mixing in, can merit so much thought, then the complex mixing of emotions that often accompany the simplest things must make up an entirely personal soup of an experience. (Euphoria.)

If the fractions of emotions are so carefully measured as to be proprietary, then statistically it is unlikely two people will ever meet who have felt exactly the same way. (Loneliness.) And when a person does find another person whom they connect with in a statistically improbable way, they may call it (Love). And what a sciency, dull way to define love. What a thing to ruminate on, these columns and rows that claim to define human experience. (Emptiness, depression.)

And yet, what a thing to take so seriously and drily! Take this excerpt from the page for 'envy':

The book of Exodus (20:17) states: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house; neither shalt thou desire his wife, nor his servant, nor his handmaid, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is his."

Perhaps today the donkey (ass) corresponds to a car, but it could represent anything desirable owned by another. The donkey cannot be readily stolen as it would be obvious.

That's why I'm not supposed to be envious of my neighbor's donkey? Because it would be obvious if I stole it? Ohhh.

Maybe the only word we're missing is a word for the sense of belonging to a global human community, even if that community is made up of people whose experiences can be reduced to 76 definitive entries in a community-contributed encyclopedia. (Premature epiphany?)