alexpgp | Testimonial...

I felt pretty exhausted after last night's sauna, but let me tell you, upon arising this morning, I well and truly did feel completely revitalized. No kidding! At breakfast I met one of other guys from last night's group and mentioned that my feeling of "well-being" was "very good" (not wanting to use the cliché "I felt like a new man"), whereupon my interlocutor agreed, and proceeded to say that a good sauna session always left him "feeling like a new man" the next morning.

If clichés are death in creative writing, they are convenient for everyday use, as they have become clichés precisely because they express some fundamental truth.

The curious reader might wonder why I put "well-being" in quotes. It is because that is the conventional meaning of the Russian word "самочувствие" that was actually used in the conversation. An alternative meaning given in most sources is "health," but neither, in my opinion, do the trick for the native speaker of English (at least, of the American variety).

The structure of the word самочувствие mimics, somewhat, that of the word самиздат (samizdat, referring to literary works published, notably during the Soviet era, outside of the official bureaucracy, i.e., self-published, underground works, laboriously typed in several copies back in the days before photocopiers). The common root "сам" or "само" means "self" or "itself," and is used often enough in other words.

For example, when combined with "лет," which is a root that occurs in many words associated with "flight," you get "самолет" or "self-flyer" (i.e., airplane). When combined with "вар," which is a root that is associated with cooking, boiling, and brewing, you get "самовар" or "samovar" (there is no translation), which is an urn used to boil water and brew tea.

So, when you are asked, in Russian, about your самочувствие, the inquiry is - in my opinion - not asking about your "health" per se (too clinical) or about your "well-being" (too philosophical), but about your "self feeling," but in a way that packs a bit more oomph than our American "How are you?" (a greeting, not a question), or "How are you doing?" (also a greeting, but too generic when not meant as one, almost like "How are things going?"). Even our "How do you feel?" doesn't quite cut it, as about the only time people ask that question is when they suspect something is wrong.

Oh, my, where has the time gone? I need to be out on the street in 10 minutes. In short, to finish the thought, asking about one's самочувствие means asking about how one feels physically and mentally, and I'm not sure there is a suitable formulation - aside from using those exact words - that does the job.

Cheers...