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.
Deep in the heart of my existential angst I look up, breaking out of my own thoughts, and experience Sonder. Thank you John Koenig.
People-watching is one of life's little joys. To practice seeing people, really seeing them. It is almost impossible I know. You can't see anything outside of yourself. Everything is one big reflection of your own mind or "I'll be your mirror" as Nico said. Still, to watch people and to enjoy that moment of being outside of it all, looking in. Not participating or being distracted, not checking your phone- seeing the little details. Humans playing out their freewill in the myriad of ways that they do.
It just amazes me endlessly. You have to turn off the endless stream of judgement to really enjoy it. To feel beneath the skin and sense what lies beneath. Quietly letting your mirror neurons do the work, activating empathy, vicariously enjoying the moment. Breathe it in...
And then you feel it all looking back at you.
You, the extra in their scene. The girl at the next table sipping coffee and taking notes.
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