I think my favorite word on this particular list comes from the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig. He invents and defines the word "sonder" as "the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own."
I want to keep this sense in my awareness when I'm with other people. I want to remember that, for as self-involved and important I make my own life, every person I meet is living a life equally vivid, complex, and beautiful. I stay in my own mind too much. I view everything from the lens of my own experiences because I forget the enormity of the life in front of me and all it represents.
I want to exit my self-involved day and inhabit the lives of others.
2 comments:
Heather, I too "stay in my own mind too much." Thank you so much for this post and the links.
Another blogger wrote a piece on sorrow and owning our own sorrow.
I didn't want too! I want to puzzle it out and fix it.
However, I've come to realize that in owning my own sorrow, I can put it up on a shelf, so to speak, and see life and others much more clearly. I will be thinking more of the "vivid and complex" now.
Well said as always Heather! Now I will expect you to use "sonder" in conversation!
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