maybe I'm just an asshole but I've felt whatever is the opposite of sonder these days when I come across people that are so clueless and inattentive they might as well be zombies.
The reasons to be compassionate are far more realistic and numerous than the possibility of a person being a zombie. It’s best to assume they have a story and a reason attached to their current state that, given time to consider, you would probably relate to them easily.
This was me as a child, quite literally. What kind of lure should I use after school at the lake, and how can I function minimally to survive class until then?
My teachers thought I was a complete idiot, haha.
People who have no more hopes or dreams, other than to make it somehow through the day.
Life can be incredibly difficult. It can become scary to dream. The will and desire to do so comes much more easily when you world tells you it’s permissible and rewarding to do so. For many of us, this doesn’t happen. Dreams get crushed over and over, hopes washed away, and fortune doesn’t favour us nearly as much as others.
Not all of us are Epictetus, Viktor Frankl, or other wise philosophers who could take adversity and transform it into meaning and joy. Even so, I doubt very much that this kind of person is anything like a zombie. Maybe outwardly so, but that means very little.
Some people have this as default, after being grinded down enough.
There is then also no more rich inner life.
Only different grades of sadness, stress and numbness.
A person is driving with a passenger. The driver goes straight through a red light. The passenger is terrified, “that light was red! Aren’t you afraid we’ll be hit?” The driver says “don’t worry, my brother does it all the time.” After crossing several red lights this way, they come to a green light and come to a complete stop. The passenger says, “why did you stop? The light is green now!” The driver says, “my brother might be out driving.”
The driver speeds up and starts going straight through a red light. The passenger is terrified, “That light was red! I'm not that late, aren’t you afraid we’ll be hit?” The driver says “Don’t worry, my brother does it all the time.”
After crossing several red lights this way, they come closer to the airport, and at a green light they come to a complete stop. The passenger says, “Why did you stop? The light is green now!” The driver says, “Oh, my brother works on this side of town."
‹ducks›