Sonder - n. the realization that each random passerby
is living a life as vivid and complex as your own – populated with their own
ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness – an epic story
that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground,
with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know
existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the
background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at
dusk.
Some people take it as a cynical “we
are all just ants who don’t affect anything”, but I don’t see it that
way. Instead, I find it beautiful how it encompasses the complexity and
seemingly infinite nature of life; all within a tiny five-letter word. We all have a unique story to tell.
(And, who doesn’t love people-watching in the city on a busy Saturday
morning?)
