give me the short story long

I’m sitting in a little café at my guesthouse in northern Thailand, waiting for my pancakes, when I overhear a man, seemingly in his 70s, and a woman, seemingly in her 60s, chatting over scrambled eggs and Earl Grey tea. This scene alone almost brought me to tears—how beautiful is it that two retired people, each traveling solo, meet up for breakfast in Thailand? I’m usually very intrigued by the conversations of strangers—not because I’m nosy (although I am)—but, more importantly, because I genuinely love nothing more than listening to people’s stories. Hearing how others experience life always makes me realize how special this human experience really is. We’re all here, living on the same planet, yet you won’t find another soul with the same experience as your own. Today, I even learned there’s a word for it: sonder—the profound awareness that every person you encounter has experienced a lifetime of hopes, fears, loves, and heartaches that you’ll never know. Each moment of sonder is a reminder to appreciate how little we truly grasp about others’ lives, and I think that’s exactly the level of empathy we need in a society that is praising individualism and distrust in strangers. When we eventually manage to unglue our eyes from the screen for a hot second, take out our noise cancelling headphones and look around, we realize that every person we encounter carries their own complex tapestry of experiences. Walking through life with this level of awareness not only is the best antidote for loneliness (which is proved to increase our risk of mortality) but it also opens the the door to greater kindness and understanding, and I think we can all use a little of this magic. Imagine how different our interactions — even our whole existence — would be if we approached each person with a sense of wonder and respect, recognizing that each one is living a story as rich and nuanced as our own.

The old man seems to have an abundance of stories to tell (a real yapper). From what I can gather, he’s been a traveler his whole life and served in the Vietnam War. You best believe, having coffee with him is bound to be a hundred times more interesting than any date I’ve ever had. He started talking about his old friend, adding that he can still remember his name because this guy was truly special—and how much he’d give to meet him again if he were still alive. How beautiful, I thought, that the spirit of this man now lives on in my mind, simply because I overheard a stranger on the table next to me talking about him. It’s an equally scary and comforting thought, knowing that a hundred years from now, most of us won’t be remembered. But isn’t it cool to think that by approaching strangers with sonder, we not only give them the opportunity to tell their own stories but also to continue the stories of loved ones they’ve already lost?

Now, as I finish up this essay, I’m sitting in a little hippie café that’s also a thrift shop and a charity (of course it is). In front of me a small notebook filled with advice, jokes, and drawings from people who visited this place before me. Another wave of sonder washes over me. How special it is to read the stories of people I haven’t even met. My favorite page is a quote that says: 'The soup was hot, but Anushka is hotter.' I imagine the person who is freshly and madly in love with Anushka writing this phrase, the two of them giggling as they read it, then leaving the café holding each other’s hands. The moment has long passed; Anushka and the horny writer might not even be together anymore, but the story reached me and therefore lives on.

In our culture, there’s so much emphasis on being cool and professional, avoiding chatting with people beyond small talk at all costs. Asking personal questions considered rude, pouring out your own heart considered burdensome, but why should we feel ashamed of sharing the entire spectrum of our human existence? Visitors to this hippie café obviously felt comfortable enough to share their darkest moments in a notebook that literal strangers will read, but I bet few of them shared these same things with the people closest to them—either because they’re ashamed or because they don’t want to be a burden. In reality, I want nothing more than to listen to the depth of others’ experiences. I don’t want to hear 'long story short'; I want the short story long. Give me all the details—tell me what you wore, what your hair looked like, how you felt, how the sky looked. I want to hear the details that others don’t have time for, because it’s in those details that real connection can exist.

I guess walking through life with a healthy amount of sonder might just be what humanity needs right now.

Ps.: I decided to fill three pages of the notebook with some lessons from the past few years that came to mind, hoping these pages will outlive my own existence and reach the right people at the right time.