May '26 Edition - Sonder

everyone is carrying a story we know only a tiny fraction of.

May 31, 2026

Time for another month of reflection to roll in.

If I had to pick a theme for May, it would be sonder - the realization that every person we pass is living a life as vivid, complex, and consuming to them as our own is to us.

Between books, conversations, and a week spent wandering through Mexico City, found myself repeatedly looking at the world through other people’s eyes. Milan Kundera’s characters, Leslie John’s stories, conversations with friends, and the countless strangers moving through their days all seemed to point back to the same idea: everyone is carrying a story we know only a tiny fraction of.

Here’s how the month unfolded for me.

What I’ve been reading / listening to

Books

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera was a special find recommended by a friend. Reading it felt like looking at the world through several different sets of eyes at once. The book captures both the beauty and fragility of life, and I have to admit that Karenin left me unexpectedly emotional by the end.

If I had to summarize what stayed with me, it would be this line:

“And therein lies the whole of man’s plight. Human time does not turn in a circle; it runs ahead in a straight line. That is why man cannot be happy: happiness is the longing for repetition.”

The beauty and the peril of repetition… there is a lot to sit with in that idea.

I also finished Revealing by Leslie John and Nordic Capitalism by Robert Strand, while continuing my slow journey through Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez. Each offered a very different lens on how we understand ourselves, our societies, and the systems we build. The chapter on finding friendship in Revealing was especially memorable for me. It was thoughtful and one of the most beautifully written explorations of how friendships are formed that I’ve read in a long time.

Life lately

I have already written quite a bit about my Mexico City trip in a separate reflection post, so I won’t repeat it here. If you missed it, feel free to follow that journey there.

More than anything, May reminded me how much of life is experienced through other people. The books stayed with me, but so did the conversations, random encounters, and moments of connection that inspired many of these reflections. Reconnecting with a friend after more than 22 years was a reminder that entire chapters of life can unfold while we are apart, yet some friendships still manage to feel familiar the moment we meet again.

Otherwise, life lately has been about looking forward to summer - the longer days, warmer weather, and more time spent outdoors with friends and family.

And because this community spans both hemispheres, I am reminding myself that seasons are not quite as universal as they feel from where I sit. Whether you’re welcoming summer, settling into winter, or somewhere in between, I hope this season brings you something worth looking forward to.

As always, thank you for reading.

5/1 (#304):

“The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.” — Carl Sagan, Cosmos

Everything we are… began out there. Something about that changes the way you see things.

5/2 (#305):

In a random park in the middle of Mexico City, watching unleashed dogs play catch, chasing after the ball... How often do we do the same, run after something only to bring it back… and start all over again?

And yet, they do it with such joy… just living in the moment, every single time.

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” — George Bernard Shaw

Not just in the chasing… but in the simple joy of doing it again.

5/3 (#306):

Came across this word yesterday: sonder.

The realization that every passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as our own… with their own ambitions, friendships, routines, worries, relationships… their own story unfolding, where they are the protagonist. We cross paths for a moment… and move on, rarely seeing the depth of what we just passed.

“We live in our own little worlds, and we rarely step outside them.”

Every person carries a whole world within them…

5/4 (#307):

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.” — Cicero

Wandering through a library yesterday, could almost feel it… books don’t just fill space… they give it life.

5/5 (#308):

“What we obtain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.” — Thomas Paine

The colder the water… the warmer the feeling it leaves behind.

5/6 (#309):

“Everything in moderation, including moderation.” — Oscar Wilde

Even the good things have their limits… and even limits have theirs.

5/7 (#310):

Came across this while listening to Hidden Brain yesterday…

Our instinctive approach is often to add… to do something more… more goals, more noise, more effort, more things to carry.

Whereas very often, it is subtraction that gets us closer to the person and the place we want to be.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

5/8 (#311):

Was reading an article in TIME magazine yesterday titled “Do Animals Have Civilizations?”

Sometimes it’s easy to look around and think this is all there is… our routines, our worries, our way of living. But there is a whole world out there beyond us… entire forms of intelligence, communication, relationships, and life unfolding in ways we may never fully understand.

“Humankind is not the standard by which other species should be judged.” — Henry Beston

5/9 (#312):

“It is only by selection, by elimination, and by emphasis that we get at the real meaning of things.” — Georgia O’Keeffe

By choosing carefully… letting go intentionally… and holding a little closer the things that truly matter…

5/10 (#313):

Came across this yesterday:

“When two partners always agree, one of them is not necessary.” — Dale Carnegie

Maybe real harmony isn’t about always agreeing… It’s about being willing to question and challenge each other, with honesty and care…

5/11 (#314):

Was reading about the origins of Mother’s Day in a Washington Post article yesterday titled “She Invented Mother’s Day — then waged a lifelong campaign against it.”

“Children have a very simplistic view of motherhood… Those women who then become mothers, they have a completely different view of motherhood.”

Maybe Mother’s Day is also about learning to honor those perspectives more honestly… without letting it become just another exercise in commercialization.

“Silent gratitude isn’t very much use to anyone who has done a lot for you.” — G. B. Stern

5/12 (#315):

“Anyone whose goal is ‘something higher’ must expect someday to suffer vertigo. What is vertigo? Fear of falling? No, vertigo is something other than fear of falling. It is the voice of the emptiness below us which tempts and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.” — Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Maybe part of pursuing something meaningful is accepting that moments of vertigo come with it… and learning to keep holding on anyway.

5/13 (#316):

Read this in an article yesterday: “And we as humans tend to excel at finding the downside of any situation.”

Couldn’t help but laugh a little at how true that feels sometimes… It’s almost like our minds are wired to immediately scan for what could go wrong. Maybe just noticing that tendency changes something, even a little…

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” — Marcel Proust

5/14 (#317):

Heard in a podcast yesterday: “Our mind is not like a muscle. It works while it rests and rests while it works.”

Maybe taking that walk when we feel stuck is exactly what the mind needs… that’s how the mind finds its way.

5/15 (#318):

Came across this yesterday: “I believe the purpose of life is to love and be loved. I find meaning in the pursuit of that purpose.” — Robert Strand

The more I think about it, the more this feels like the best definition of the meaning of life I have come across so far… not in the outcome, but in the pursuit…

5/16 (#319):

“I only know one thing, and that is I know nothing.” — Socrates

Leaving this here for today.

5/17 (#320):

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” — John Lennon

Yesterday’s laundry left me wondering about one of life’s great mysteries… how a sock disappears in the wash and never returns, apparently escaping the laws of physics…

And maybe that quote applies here too. Life is what happens to us while we are busy searching for that missing sock…

5/18 (#321):

“Who steals my purse steals trash; ’tis something, nothing;
’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.” — Shakespeare, Othello

I was listening to the Hidden Brain episode on gossip, and they noted that we spend about 14% of our daily conversations talking about other people. While harmful gossip can damage reputations (as the quote goes), they also pointed out that sharing praise or recommending someone is a form of gossip too… one that builds trust. In many ways, this is how we make sense of one another as humans.

So maybe, next time we find ourselves talking about someone (who isn’t present), we can remember we’re all just amateur social scientists trying to make sense of the world… but let’s do it kindly.

5/19 (#322):

“No one can give anyone else the gift of the idyll; only an animal can do so, because only animals were not expelled from Paradise. The love between dog and human is idyllic. It knows no conflicts, no hair-raising scenes; it knows no development.” — Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Sometimes the most meaningful moments come from simply sitting beside those who ask nothing from us but just our presence…

5/20 (#323):

From my cycling class yesterday:

“We didn’t wake up to give up…
Let’s keep going.”

Sometimes that’s all we need to hear…

5/21 (#324):

“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” — Socrates

Came across the term “luxury of boredom” while reading a book review…

I think this is both what we need and what we struggle with most. We long for a time and place where nothing is demanded of us… but the moment boredom arrives, we rush to fill it with noise or distraction.

5/22 (#325):

From this week’s Hidden Brain episode: They spoke about the idea of “altruism born of suffering” … how sometimes going through difficult experiences can open people up to caring more deeply about the suffering of others. We often hear phrases like “hurt people hurt people,” and while that may be true in some cases, they explored a more hopeful possibility too. People who have struggled with addiction becoming counselors… people who have experienced trauma turning toward helping others heal from similar experiences.

One of the important factors they talked about was the support we receive from others. Often, the people who go on to help others were once helped by someone themselves… A helping hand can sometimes travel much farther than we ever get to see or hear about…

5/23 (#326):

“What does not benefit the hive does not benefit the bee either.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

We are often taught to see success as a race, but life is not a zero sum game. There is space for everyone… Individual growth and collective growth do not have to come at the expense of each other. Often, they strengthen each other.

5/24 (#327):

Picked up the book “Revealing” by Leslie John and came across Erving Goffman’s idea of the “front stage” and “backstage” in life from his book “The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life.”

The versions of ourselves we present to the world… and the quieter parts we keep behind the scenes…Made me think about how exhausting it can be to constantly perform a version of ourselves that feels disconnected from who we really are … and how over time that can create distance not just from others, but from ourselves too.

“…a special kind of alienation from self and a special kind of wariness of others.” — Erving Goffman

5/25 (#328):

“Nature sets the stage, but nurture directs the play.” — Leslie Brody, quoted in Leslie John’s Revealing

Was reading in Revealing about the discussion around how much of the gender gap in emotional expressivity is driven by nature versus nurture. What I appreciated about the author’s perspective was the reminder that instead of endlessly focusing on what is innate, we should pay more attention to what can actually be changed … the environments, expectations, and experiences we create around people.

5/26 (#329):

“Anything that’s human is mentionable, and anything that’s mentionable can be more manageable.” — Mister Rogers

Continuing with Revealing by Leslie John, came across the idea of affect labeling… turning raw feelings into words.

“It doesn’t actually seem to matter how you put feelings into words—onto a page, a screen, or even spoken aloud. The point is to name what’s swirling around in your head.”

If we are not writing for others, all the more reason to write for ourselves…

5/27 (#330):

“Long may the wolves run and the red dogs roam.” — Lynn Houghton

Came across this line in an article about Yellowstone in BBC Wildlife. In a world where almost everything is tracked and managed these days… it feels good knowing there are still wild places where nature can exist on its own terms…

5/28 (#331):

“Psychological health depends on our willingness to be known — not as we want to appear, but as we really are.” — Sidney Jourard

For each of us, being known might look different (both internally and externally)… But regardless of how or where we do it, I think it is worth having at least one place where we don’t have to perform a version of ourselves for the world…

5/29 (#332):

“…we had finally reached the point where we could talk to each other about almost everything. Perhaps the greatest reward for that was that we no longer felt compelled to say anything at all.” — Leslie John, Revealing

According to the author, that is the power of friendship built through disclosure… reaching a point where silence no longer feels empty. Perhaps the goal was never to fill the silence, but to earn it…

5/30 (#333):

“Train your body. Support your mind.”

Saw this on my gym’s notice board yesterday.

I think it is a good motto to live by. Sometimes the best way to support our mind is to just move our body.

5/31 (#334):

“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” — Albert Einstein

Maybe we’ve been asking the wrong question. The question is not “Are we learning enough?” but “What are we curious about? What fascinates us?” Learning often follows on its own…

Thank you for reading. Until next month, here's to staying curious about the stories unfolding around us.