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.
May 5, 2025 at 6:52 pm
Oooh, I knew there had to be a word for this! I used to get this feeling a lot as a kid when I’d be sitting in the backseat of my parent’s car. I’d look out the window and see other people in cars and feel some sort of existential angst at how insignificant we all are, despite us all feeling our lives are the center of the universe. ( Yeah, I was a really fun, happy-go-lucky kid, lol).
Cheers for making me aware of ‘The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows’ ! Seems a similar concept to that lovely book ‘Otherwordly’ (Yee-Lum Mak) from a while back.
May 6, 2025 at 7:08 pm
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. It seems it’s something we all go through. Thinking we are the centre of the universe, then luckily realising that’s not the case, because that sounds like too much responsibility to bear.
It’s my pleasure! Thank you for making me aware of Otherwordly by Yee-Lum Mak. I will have a look.
May 6, 2025 at 6:37 pm
I never knew there was a word for this!
May 6, 2025 at 7:03 pm
And it’s such a good one!
March 6, 2026 at 6:24 am
I now have the word for my wanderings and wonderings when I take the time to stop and see people, living, breathing, feeling and laboring people. More importantly is learning that I am not alone in this. So many of us can (if we disengage from our distractions) feel this. There is a word for it. Let it become more common and stir us to see others with grace.
March 7, 2026 at 5:46 pm
I’m glad I was able to introduce a new word to you! You are absolutely right. We are in this together. Going through similiar situations. Figuring it out as we go along.