I just learned a new word. It’s new not only to me but to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and possibly many of us. According to the online Word Daily site, it was created by a German writer named John Koenig, as part of their book called “The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows,” released in 2021. Before it was a book, it was an online website and YouTube channel. Did you know of this? The book includes a collection of words Koenig coined to express a variety of emotions, not just sorrows, but for which he thought no word existed.
The word is ‘sonder.’ It means “the realization and understanding that all other people have lives as complex as one’s own.” Wow; as complex, and let’s add as valuable, as painful, as full of worries and wonder. A realization that just as we ourselves have an inner world filled with contradictions, so does everyone else. We all feel and love and dream.
When we’re in a traffic jam, we feel sonder when we see these other people in the cars next to us and feel, wow, they’re as complex as I am. They’re rushing to work or the hospital or a lover, feeling anxiety or fear or anticipation, or all three. The word might’ve been inspired by the French ‘sonder’ meaning “to measure the depth of.” We measure the depth of those we see and hear; we measure our own depth by recognizing that of others. What great power we can unfold with such a word!
According to Wikipedia, Sonder is also the name of a music album by an American pop-band, and the name of an American neo-soul group. Koenig says that “most of what we feel goes unspoken for lack of a word” to realize, express, or ripen it.
As I get older, I feel a newly realized appreciation for words. And I guess I feel sonder towards so many of my fellow agers who, like me, are finding it more difficult to remember words we once spoke readily. Maybe this sounds like a stereotype, but it’s reality for so many of us. Words that once danced easily out of our mouths now hide and we can feel bereft over the loss. We’re left with frustration— and then silence. Yet, it’s how we respond to the silence that most effects who we are and will be.
Sometimes, a conversation with my wife becomes an opportunity for pantomime and guessing games. I stand up and mime partially sitting with my arms held out in front of me grasping air and ask her, “What is that word? I know it begins with a ‘b’ and it names something with 2 wheels we can ride.”
Each of us has our own memories, connotations that reach beyond common meanings. Likewise, every language is its own world, or embodies a different perspective on the universe, so each has words that others miss.
For example, according to philosopher Alan Watts in his book The Way of Zen, there are 4 words espousing a perspective unique to the Japanese language and expressing moods characteristic of Japanese poetry. Some of the words have close English approximations but with unique twists. The moods are, in Japanese, sabi, wabi, aware (a-wa-re), and yugen. Sabi is when we get quiet and feel detached from our usual concerns; we feel a quiet isolation. Poet Lucien Stryck said sabi is the recognition of beauty in asymmetry, imperfection, and the yearning to go beyond a superficial understanding.
Wabi is often linked with sabi. It’s a sense of simplicity, purity, and sincerity. Watts said it’s the poignant appreciation of what others call common. We catch a glimpse of the ordinary in its “incredible suchness.” The mood can arise when we feel sad or depressed and we notice the uselessness of many of our concerns. Stryck said wabi is the feeling of something previously ignored now seen as precious….
*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.
