Sonder

I learned a new word the other day [Thanks, @Col FInk].

Sonder.

It is "the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own".

I had been aware of the idea for a long time - since I was a little girl - but never knew there was a word. I suppose I came to think of it as 'theory of mind" but I could have been getting that wrong.

I clearly remember the place where I first realised this, and that I was quite young because we still had our old pink Holden called "Rosie". I was sitting in the back seat looking out my window and I was feeling pretty happy. We were just across the old railway crossing heading south out of town and I noticed another family their car heading into town. As we drove by each other, I recall looking at the dad driving his family somewhere, and thought, "He must be having lots of thoughts like I am. Happy, sad, about his family and friends and relations and stuff he did. And so must everyone else in his car, and our car, and everybody in the world". And it blew my tiny little mind.

In one of my favourite episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Earshot, Buffy is blessed/cursed with the ability to hear what people are thinking. Standing in high school clock tower looking down on the students, she says, "If you could hear what they were feeling. ... It looks quiet down there. It's not. It's deafening...".

When we walk around our workplaces, take a moment to recognise how little we know about what is going on in people's heads and their lives. I know when I do this ONE THING, it gives me pause to be a little kinder and more generous.

#doonethingdeep #buffythevampireslayer #thoughts #kinder