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.
verb: sonder, sondered, sondering adjective: sonder thenewgreen: Whatcha doin'? lil: Just sondering. tng: How come? What set it off? Was there a particular sonder experience? lil: I was listening to They Might Be Giants song, Ana Eng, -- it's full of sonderlines, but when I came to the chorus...
it spun me out into thinking of all the people in the world who might be perfect for me, that I have never met. Ana Ng and I are getting old
And we still haven't walked in the glow
Of each other's majestic presence
Listen Ana hear my words
They're the ones you would think I would say
If there was a me for you
Well, we might have a winner with this word given that wonderful definition. However, I'm having trouble finding it in any dictionary that would count in a game of scrabble...? Still, I'm happy to know this great word. The absence of sonder is something that largely differentiates online and offline communications. The more this is eradicated, the better. Hubski, sonder for the web.