 |
| There's probably a special place in hell for people that make terrible header images. I'm probably going there one day. Image was nicked from here. |
If you, like myself, are of the contemplative disposition, then it is entirely possible that you have, at some point in your life, found yourself considering the lives and stories of those around you. Today, I found myself considering this for perhaps the third time in my life. Lets talk about that.
The above is the song "Habits (Stay High)" (The "Hippie Sabotage Remix" version) by Tove Lo, a Swedish singer whom I stumbled on, as I tend to do, while watching various music videos on YouTube today. This song is strangely unique and meaningful, despite it's obvious audience perhaps being the mindlessly drunk masses of clubs wherever it may be played, lyrically discussing someone's need to be "High all the time" in an attempt to forget what was indubitably someone who was once very significant to them.
While listening to this song, however, I found myself wondering about the life of the portrayed girl in the video, as well as the lives of all the other people I have or will meet in my life. While this manner of contemplation is not unfamiliar to me as a writer of fictional stories, I found it interesting how little I had ever contemplated the full and unfiltered lives of those around me as an equivalent to my own. Ask yourself how many times you've ever tried to absolutely forget you're own life while trying to see all the things someone else has experienced. All the crazy things they've done, the hardships, the tears and laughs, the significant others and the less so, the moments that nearly killed them, and the times that they felt most alive. Their lives are, despite the limited scope of your perspective and imagination, as colorful and vibrant as your own. A lifetime of stories you may never even know to have occurred beyond what you can vaguely guess at in your own mind.
There is no word in the Oxford Dictionary for this act of contemplation regarding others. Nor any other dictionary that you might read, save one:
"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." - The Dictionary Of Obscure Sorrows
It is, perhaps, ironic, that the only existing word for such realizations is as obscure as the realizations themselves. And yet, it is fitting, that we, as humans, can only dream about the lives of others. To contemplate the lives they've lived in rarity. To only occasionally glimpse into all the other lives you yourself could have lived, save for your own decisions and experiences that made you into who you are. These moments of almost omniscient clarity and pure imagination help us to temper our own souls, and allow us to decide if things are truly how we want them to be, or are simply that way because we never bothered to change them. To "Sonder", as John Koenig call it in his Dictionary, allows us the objectively ability to understand not only the significance of those around you and their stories, but how they might contemplate your life as well. Such a realization gives us a question of significance, one that, like myself, may spur some new decisions in your life with this new year. Quite simply: "Are you living a life nobody else could ever dream of knowing?"
If not... perhaps its time for change?
Do be sure to let us know down in the comments below what you thought of this contemplative post, or via Facebook/Twitter as we here at TCSA love to hear your feedback. And of course, if you enjoy finding out about awesome and interesting stuff on the web and in the world then do please be sure to like the Official TCSA Facebook page and/or follow us on Twitter using the associated buttons on the bar to the left to get all the latest posts as they're published. Also, do be sure to share posts you enjoyed with your friends as it helps us out a great deal. Regardless of what you do, I thank you for having taken the time to read this post; hope that you have/had an absolutely FANTASTIC day, and I will speak again soon.
Live with meaning my friends.
