Sonder

Sonder (n). the realisation that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own

I am a high school student. Naturally, my mind is constantly cluttered with thoughts, worries and concerns—half of which seem trivial by the very next week. But by then, a new wave of stresses and contemplations would have arisen, distracting me from the world that encircles me. Distracting me from my surroundings, leading me into a tunnel which blocks out the rest of the world. On the tunnel walls, I see: unfinished poems, books I've been meaning to read, school work I’ve procrastinated on, the conversation with my friend, the relative I should have called… and hundreds of others. At the end of the tunnel, I only see my future, my ambitions and aspirations.

I live in a bubble made of steel, encrusted with diamonds. I am the protagonist of my own story, and the world is my background.

But one day, I came across the word “sonder”. It was an incredible moment. It is such a beautiful word, with a meaning deeper than any other I’ve encountered in any language. I found it amazing that such a profound meaning could be entrenched in a six-letter-word. It was the word that turned my tunnel walls less opaque, the word that weakened the diamonds that hold my bubble together.

Everybody is living their own story. Everybody is ensconced in their own bubbles. Every person is lodged in a story unique to their own lives—whether that story is exciting, unpredictable, monotonous, or just plain “normal”. Around my figure, unwritten stories are developing, lingering in the air, flaying with the invisible currents of existence. People whom I’ve only seen once, people whom I had met but can’t remember, people I pass by on the streets or whose faces I had seen pressed to windows. Regardless of how insignificant a person may seem to your own story, that person still has a life brimming with relationships, troubles, dreams, concerns, plans, ambitions…

The realisation opened my eyes. It made me question, wonder, muse. Why was that girl sitting on a bench, doing nothing, when it was drizzling out? Why did my friend suddenly start wearing so much makeup? Why was he sitting in his balcony with red eyes and a puffy face? All around me, ideas are being created, stories are being written, new passages are being constructed, pages are being filled up, invisible to the rest of the world yet meaning everything to the author. All around us, hopes are taking form, dreams are cementing themselves into tangible objects—like spirits swirling and looping and churning.

Sonder. The awareness that while we aren’t the centre of the universe, we’re the centre of our own universe. That although we’re just a minuscule dot at the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy, we’re still the most important entity in the universe that was born when we were. That we’re at the centre, while other people—family, friends, acquaintances, passers-by—revolve around that nucleus. That in a way, there are seven billion universes embedded in our planet. And most importantly, the realisation that we orbit the nucleus of hundreds, even thousands, of other universes we didn’t know exist. We are also a family member, a friend, an acquaintance and a passer-by. We are a competitor, a colleague, a leader, a follower. We are a part of an intricate system too convoluted to understand; the best we can do is imagine.

Sonder.