Welcome to the 164th insertion of DEMUR®, an analytical series highlighting the intricacies of the artistic world and the minutiae lying within. In this episode we investigate a story of language, digging vicariously in search of perspective, origin and effect.
No matter what angle ‘Sonder’ is approached from, the premise is complex yet ever-so-personal. Like a childhood friend you can’t quite depict, or a smell reminiscent of your mother’s cuisine, the feeling is distant in thought but retains a warm sentiment when called upon. Despite its entirely unofficial classification, Sonder, a term coined by American author John Koenig in 2012, is just one of many thoughts published in his digital mind - but what is it?
By definition, Koening describes Sonder as “The profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passing in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it.” The emotion is consuming yet blissful, shimmering in light of unity while sharing the ethos of Cosmicisim (the feeling of insignificance within the larger scheme of intergalactic existence).
In practice, we can find Sonder through fleeting thought, gazing upon passerbys on a subway car or park bench. Catching one’s self as we peer into an outsider's everyday thoughts, hardships and triumphs, naturally the brain seeks such insight on a societal basis. If this sounds familiar, it’s because it probably is, you may have just lacked an adjective to describe it. This premise is a common linguistic barrier in English, doubling as the root of Koneig’s career.
Titled ‘The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows’, the author’s prized work comes as both a digital and physical dictionary. Here he produces an array of ‘new’ words to fill in the gaps where the English language fails, created out of frustration while writing poetry. Despite critical reception, notable words like ‘watashiat’ (a curiosity in the impact of one’s own actions on other’s lives) or ‘etterath’ (the feeling of bittersweet emptiness after an arduous project), allow us to develop our communicative forms in an otherwise untapped manner.
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