When I was a child, I thought I was the only person that mattered. When I was a teenager, I thought I was the only person who knew anything. I was the only one who was ‘right’ and I couldn’t understand why nobody saw the world in the same way as me. Now, I think we’re all pretty ‘sonder’, a phrase coined by John Koenig in 2012, meaning ‘the realisation, that each random passer-by is living a life as vivid and complex as your own’.
Sonder is not an official dictionary word, it was a realisation that Koenig had in his Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, where he aims to come up with new words for emotions that currently have no official description.
Some may call the above changes in worldview simply growing up, losing the egocentricity of childhood and suddenly being aware of everyone else’s complicated consciousness. Others, rather than a chemical change in our bodies, may equate them to experience, conversation, a larger variety of human connection and a change of mind due to sharing thoughts with those around us.
Another term I picked up from Koenig’s dictionary of obscure sorrows was ‘midding’. Described as ‘feeling the tranquil pleasure of being near a gathering but not quite in it—hovering on the perimeter of a campfire, chatting outside a party while others dance inside, resting your head in the backseat of a car listening to your friends chatting up front—feeling blissfully invisible yet still fully included, safe in the knowledge that everyone is together and everyone is okay, with all the thrill of being there without the burden of having to be’.
In many cases, when we discover new words for sentiments we didn’t know had an official description, it helps us find belonging within how we feel and our lostness depletes.
If every unknown word for every commonly felt human emotion became vernacular, perhaps human existence would become less confusing. Or perhaps, we would be so bombarded with labels for feelings there would be no room for emotive exploration. Our sensations would be too easy to pinpoint and we would be unable to question ourselves because every thought and sentiment would already have a name.
We are, in most cases, shaped by those around us.
It’s at an early age that our personality is formed, but there is a difference between personality and thoughts. Personality is stable, formed in childhood and is who we are. Some may even say we are born with it.
But thoughts are ever fluctuating, evolving, flourishing and deepening, darkening and depleting.
Similar to personality, our thoughts are shaped by experience. By conversations that change our mind and receiving answers that lead us to further questions.
Our thoughts are shaped by what we read, what we see, colours we absorb and emotions we empathise with. The more of these factors we are subjected to, the more our minds will be opened, and thoughts will evolve.
Each sensory experience is absorbed by our minds and exuded in our opinions. Our new opinions are then absorbed again and exuded in yet another new medium. Our ideas are a biological clock.
Independent thinkers
Independent thinkers can be described as people who are able to think more for themselves, challenge the status quo of behaviour and not live through the fear of people disagreeing with what they believe and how they behave. They don’t need others’ validation to know how they feel, and they are not scared of the rejection of their beliefs from mainstream society.
Yet, the paradox here lies in the fact that independent thinkers are not necessarily born as such. They, too, are products of their environment, raised in a way that encourages independent thinking or having witnessed conformity in the form of ‘sheeple’ behaviour and felt compelled to oppose it.
The independent minds among us are also taught how to think.