I guess I'll post a quick word about my username.
I learned the word "Sonder" yesterday, its definition doesn't appear to show up in any "official" databases, but a good number of popular mainstream internet sites share the exact same definition.
Sonder:
n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your ownpopulated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited crazinessan epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that youll 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.
Learning this word struck something inside of me. Certainly the feeling was nothing new to me - I'd be sitting on my balcony watching traffic stream by and think how none of those people would be looking at me, that some would be in a hurry to something of significance, or no real significance at all, and some wouldn't even be in that much of a rush- but it felt truly poignant to find something denoting such a complex and wholesomely meaningful experience.
I learned the word "Sonder" yesterday, its definition doesn't appear to show up in any "official" databases, but a good number of popular mainstream internet sites share the exact same definition.
Sonder:
n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your ownpopulated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited crazinessan epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that youll 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.
Learning this word struck something inside of me. Certainly the feeling was nothing new to me - I'd be sitting on my balcony watching traffic stream by and think how none of those people would be looking at me, that some would be in a hurry to something of significance, or no real significance at all, and some wouldn't even be in that much of a rush- but it felt truly poignant to find something denoting such a complex and wholesomely meaningful experience.