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. nostr:note1sfltx9vuvejuh668l23vm9xp26k6vjdejznu934c6kfh7smyzwxsmfg49a

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The even crazier thought is that each one of us is loved by a God who holds all of those vivid and complex stories together. I for one can’t wait to read the complete narrative one day.

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭139‬:‭13‬-‭16‬ ‭

Glad to finally know the word for it, as I’ve been struck by the realization from time to time. We are the leading actors in our own lives