Sonder is a term coined by John Koenig in his book, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows a project in which he seeks to describe emotions without names. Sonder, “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.” I think the first jolt of sonder I felt was outside the New York Public Library on a trip as a teen, the steps, and the area around it were teeming with hundreds of people, with a shock I realized all these people are “real” they have lives, stories, failures and happiness.
I feel like I experience "sonder" more than average. Not that I don't have plenty of my own dramas to be immersed in, but I do just sometimes like to look around and think about what's really going on in the lives of those around me, and often there are enough clues there to give my imagination plenty to run with! I never before had a word for it though, thank you.
I feel like I experience "sonder" more than average. Not that I don't have plenty of my own dramas to be immersed in, but I do just sometimes like to look around and think about what's really going on in the lives of those around me, and often there are enough clues there to give my imagination plenty to run with! I never before had a word for it though, thank you.