The Entanglement of Fates
We’re all connected
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.
Stick that in your pipe and smoke it for a while.
This fascinating thought from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows has been on a loop in my mind for several years.
I chose the picture above because of the vast potential of stories stemming from it. Who is this? Why are they in a cast? Who are the children that lovingly decorated it? I know, but I’m not telling.
Think of all the people you’ve known in your life. Some played major roles, others played more minor ones. There was a guy I was in the army with twenty years ago. I knew him for only two months, but I still remember his sister’s name.
There are other people that drop in on your life and make an instant impact, but who are gone almost as quickly as they showed up…
