My Lead Skull
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.
There’s a feeling that is often described as surprising or bewildering, it has been named ‘sonder’. The sudden realization that every individual around you is a unique person, every one of them has their own lives filled with worries, anxieties, difficulties and trials which have nothing to do with you. 99.9% of the people you’ll pass on the street each day have no direct connection to you and yet each one has a weight on their shoulders which troubles them in the same way your very own weight does.
For me, the trouble often feels like a piece of lead, shaped oddly and familiarly as a skull, which sits atop my shoulders precariously balanced. On occasion, it feels as though it will topple over and fall away, the sheer weight becoming too much to lift, leaving me headless and directionless. Sometimes it achieves that just by existing up there. When I’m near the edge of the proverbial cliff, I tend to walk — wander as far as I can without any sort of goal or aim, because it seems to personify that aura of directionlessness that swirls around inside the ponderous, lead ball that is my head.
Walking is a release. It permits detachment. When I walk, I am concerned about where my foot is planted next, whether on the soft, forgiving sand of the beach near my house, or to climb the crest of a muddy hill miles away. There’s no metaphorical significance to the action as there are in the lines of a poem or the powerful words of an orator, just a physical sense of distance.
No screens, no text, no speech.
No desire to be seen, no curation of my words, no overanalysis of conversation.
I simply wander, disconnected, and absorb what the world offers — sights, smells, sounds. The ripple of the cold, black lake as a swan takes flight. The overpowering, attractive aroma of a woman’s perfume as she idles by in the opposite direction. The drifting, floating words of a conversation not intended for me but heard nonetheless. A girl, barely 16: ‘…I’ve got medication for my anxiety, for when it gets to the point when I can’t…’ The end of the sentence passes me by before I can hear it. At first I thought that I would’ve liked to hear more, to be involved, to be part of a greater process, to empathise, or sympathise.
This process teaches me a different lesson.
There is value in realising how small you are.
There is value in realising that no matter your efforts, you cannot fix the world or change everything for the better. When I walk, I know that the only thing that matters are the erratic connections we find between us, often fleeting and unfulfilling. They are what makes us who we are: thoughts that feel like lead weights and all. I can’t walk away from them no matter how far I try to go.
