Sunday Morning: Sonder


sonder – n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.


28 thoughts on “Sunday Morning: Sonder”

  1. Awesome David..Love to think about this while up here in the mountains – free of anything grabbing my attention other than the sound of the wind in the trees.

  2. Amazing. I feel like we are, each of us, a part of this intricate tapestry. Do you ever look at your hands and think about how incredible it is that this package of energy exists? At this time…in this place, connecting or not connecting with our equally complex companions in this space of time on earth. It is amazing.

    1. Yes, so true. Your thoughts reminded me of this John Izzo quote:

      “A friend of mine used to say that the problem with life is that it is “so daily.” What he meant was that it is how we live and approach each day that ultimately determines the quality of our lives. In this same way, the choice to move toward innocence rather than cynicism is one that we make each day, and often many times during the same day.

      We don’t rediscover joy and wonder through one large choice we make but hundreds of smaller ones. It is something akin to a silly riddle my kids used to ask me: “How do you eat an elephant?” One bite at a time.”

      ~ John Izzo, Second Innocence

  3. I find this utterly captivating…. I love the idea that I am sometimes “the extra in someone else’s play,” just by virtue of my existence in that place at that time. I often have this eery feeling when I travel–I come to a new town, filled with homes and people and their lives and think “Wow, they’ve been running on this parallel track with me, living their lives with all the happiness and love and sorrow, and I never even knew this place existed before this moment, nor they me….”

  4. I’m catching up on this weekend’s posts. I absolutely love this one! I can be the lead in my movie and an extra in someone else’s. I’ve been an extra in a “real” movie (actually, that is being generous!) and I definitely felt like a second-class citizen. I wonder how many of the extras in my movie have felt like that….

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