Sonder
It’s a strange feeling, realising that other people you don’t know have their own, full lives that don’t touch yours. — Mackenzi Lee
I think I first heard the word ‘Sonder’ in 2018. My friend, Farook, had posted about it on his Whatsapp story. It was a picture or a video from the dictionary of obscured sorrows and a week has not gone by where I do not think about it. Here’s what it means:
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. ― John Koenig, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
Could you read that again? Isn’t it so beautiful? If I was to crown a word as the one with the most beautiful meaning, I’d definitely give the crown to Sonder.
Maybe I’m just weird, but I am constantly fascinated by the fact that there are more than eight billion vivid, complex, and very interesting lives happening all at once. There are eight billion stories in which each person is the main character and our lives will only interact with a very, very tiny fraction. There are 8 billion stories that I would never know. It’s exhilarating.
Our lives are continually filled with people that we do not know and will never know. Each passing day, we come across hundreds of people, on our way to work, in our places of worship, our streets, markets, etc. People with lives of their own that we know nothing about.
I’d like to think of life as a big Venn diagram with billions of circles and only a tiny fraction of those circles intersect. What of the circles that just briefly touched mine? And the circles that never touched mine. Can one miss something she never experienced?
I like to imagine the lives of people…
Think of all the people you’ve passed on the road. The hundreds of thousands of people you’ve watched over the years from the bus or car windows as the vehicle sped by, the babies you made laugh by making funny faces, the random person across the streets you exchanged looks with.
Whenever I am on the bus, I love to imagine the lives of the people sitting around me. Maybe the woman in the red Ankara dress is a singer. She probably lost her husband some years ago. Now she’s finding love and it scares her.
Is the man in the funny tie happy? Maybe he’s going to an interview. I wonder what the interviewers would think about the tie. I hope they like it and choose him.
Please tell me that I am not the only one who does this.
Brief intersections.
Two months ago, I shared my umbrella with a stranger on the road. She didn’t ask me to, I was obstructing her way and she wanted to pass. My semi-awkward self spoke of its own accord and invited her to share the umbrella with me. She accepted we made the journey together, mostly in silence.
She told me her name. I don’t remember it. I’m sure she doesn’t remember mine. I only remember that she was wearing a black hijab and a pink top. I don’t remember her face.
Maybe she won’t forget my name. Maybe she’ll think of me whenever she sees a blue umbrella. She might even get to read this by sheer luck.
Strokes and paintings.
To her and the countless others who our lives have briefly touched. I am nothing but a speck, an almost imperceptible stroke on a painting.
It humbles me to know that in the grand scheme of things, I am very insignificant. It’s almost a beautiful realization. It allows me to live life a bit lighter and freer.
And on the other hand, I believe that the artist always knows the importance of every dot and stroke he makes on the canvas. One little stroke of paint can make all the difference to a painting. So, it might just be possible that our brief meetings are not coincidental.
How do we cater to the lives that briefly touch ours? Maybe this is a reminder for us to be a little kinder and softer to the people we meet.
And back to us, the truth is that I will never meet a lot of you. But somehow in the course of nature, our lives have touched. We have crossed digital paths in this highly eclectic existence. I am glad we met.
