#1: The raison d'être for this series
My futile attempt at an elevator pitch to encourage you (practically an early-stage VC investor) on the reasons to join this community. Congrats. if you make it to the end!
This year, as per the Gregorian calendar, is about to end in just a few short (or based on how you look at it, in Mish time*, and with ample family holiday time thrown in there to cocktail up your feelings - angsty, reflective and potentially languish-filled) days. This also puts me exactly 102 days away from my 30th birthday. I’d say #plsfix but that would stereotypically imprint me in the hall of fame reserved for former civil servants and strategy consultants, both of which I am.
*Mish time: As most of my friends are aware, I consider myself a citizen of many worlds. Growing up in a dozen countries (I promise I won’t name drop….yet) and quite literally have always inhabited different time zones. Much to their dismay…this has also meant them having to constantly ask me which mobile number they should retain on my contact card and for some, undoubtedly texting a long expired prepaid number (friends, this is me giving you formal permission to please indefinitely delete my Swiss/Cambodian/Thai/Filipino numbers)
1. Why this? Why now?
Like the docile disciple of our milestone-obsessed society that I am, I thought there was no better way to enter a new decade than to start (with no solicitation at all) dishing out the wisdom of my 20s and scribing the undoubtedly copious learnings my 30s will bring. I also like to think that each of us are more than the sum of our experiences, and we are certainly far more than the average of the people around us. Without making this into a cruel math problem solving session, it seems fitting to commence my 3rd decade on this planet with a cultural commentary (read: ode) to the whole individuals and obviously wholesome moments that shape my POV in more ways than one.
2. Why should you subscribe to this community?
If you worship at the altar of Belle and Sebastian (“colour my life with the chaos of trouble”), you are in the right place. If you, like me, have a penchant for indie films (hi Celeste & Jesse Forever), you are also in the right place. If you, also like me, have a myriad of interests (policy, art, photography, business, music, travel) and refuse to be compartmentalised by uniform societal archetypes defining you by your 9-5 job (do these exist?), you are definitely in the right place. But if I’m going to get real on my own language use here - what does the “right place” even mean? Can we ever be “right” about a place? What does a “wrong place” entail? Okay, you caught me - this community will also be a rambling celebration of roots and routes, a cultural commentary of sorts on the colourful complexity and chaos of each of our lives. I will share my musings, invite vibrant guest voices, and share resources (#official) to get you through some monochromatic days.
3. Why is this newsletter named after a neologism?
Sonder (n.): 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.
Growing up across the Middle East, Europe, North America and Asia (told you I’d start name dropping), I was pretty much trained in the habit of flux. This also meant meeting a plethora of strangers constantly. The nosy (we have a nose, we should use them) only child in me was always curious and perhaps as fuel for my introvert ways, often introspectively journaled about the kinds of lives that others around me were living as a way to deal with my own steady state of change. The grass is always greener and in my relatively short time on this planet, I’ve had enough people assume my urban nomadism somehow qualifies me as more complex or interesting, neither of which I necessarily believe. What my lifestyle and upbringing have taught me, however, is that we will all, whether we move or not, be caught in multiple seasons of change which life inevitably flings our way. The new reactions, rules, and expressions we make up are often the most complex, interesting parts of the stories we keep and tell over and over again. And so, in sonder I trust.