It's hard to depict emotions. It requires understanding the context of a situation and the personality and thoughts of another person. That's the role of stories.
You embark in a journey that portraits the actions as well as the emotions of a character as he confronts failure and despair. You learn his present and past, his motivation, thoughts and desires. You have the full picture. This allows you to directly relate to the struggle of the character, and understand the origin and causes of his reactions. It's an invaluable experience: learning from someone else's struggle without the need to experience the same situation in real life.
心が折れる (kokoro ga oreru) in Japanese is a combination of two (three) words:
- 心: heart, spirit, willpower
- (が): subject particle
- 折れる: verb meaning "to break"
心が折れる literally means "broken spirit". In a mild sense it refers to "losing motivation", but at its extreme it can be seen as "despair" and "hopelessness".
Words are not enough to convey something like the sensation of hopelessness. Stories do. And it's from a story that yesterday I got a glimpse of what 心が折れる means, how it originates, and how it manifests.
This sensation is extremely relevant today. It's about losing your willpower, in the literal sense of the word. You "power" of "will", your desire to engage in an activity or aspire to a future goal. When your willpower breaks, you stop taking actions all together.
It all originates from a doubt, a crack in your spirit while pursuing a goal. A situation or event that makes you question the meaning of your struggle. The event doesn’t need to be extreme, it can be as simple as a few words, a new perspective. Suddenly you have doubts about your why and your destination. If not mended, more doubts cause further damage to your spirit, until your whole willpower crashes, 心が折れる.