Too often, we live our lives without giving a second thought to the random strangers around us. We are surrounded by people, and all of them have intricate lives and networks. Now we have a word to describe this concept: sonder.
Meaning: This definition is taken from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, a collection of invented words written by John Koenig: “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.”
Origin: This word was invented by John Koenig in 2012. It is inspired by the German word sonder- (meaning “special”) and the French word sonder (meaning “to probe”).
Example: Standing at the train station, watching the crowd, I felt the sonder awaken my mind.
We all live on this planet, we all have our own individual lives, and we are also interconnected in one way or another. But the beauty of it is that you may only see the one stranger just one time. They still exist, however, and their life is no less richer because you no longer see them with your own eyes. Next time you observe someone you don’t know, spare a moment to think about who they might be and what brought them to this exact moment in this exact place. Everyone has a story.
