I still remember...

... I was around ten years old and suddenly the realization hit me that every other person in the world was REAL with their own thoughts and emotions and dreams and fears and lives and likes and dislikes... the whole kaboodle, the same complex layered tangled skein of connections and intersections of time and space... as me. 

I mean. I knew this already, obviously. But I’d never thought about or considered it until then. And, it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks. 

It still amazes me. People amaze me. 

They’re so much bigger on the inside.

so many stories big and small comical and tragical and banal and dramatic and epic 
so many roles in each person - father, son, brother, mushroom farmer, overbearing boss, gay when drunk, model railway enthusiast, lucky with dice, once hit a hitchhiker with their car and didn’t stop, still secretly in love with an actress in a film he saw as a teenager...

and so on and so on ad infinitum 
Whole worlds galaxies universes
in every one

and yet
we forget 
or forget to think about it
every day like we should 
stuck in our own 
heads lives careers 

a bunch of personality traits
experiences
memories
choices and consequences
accidents of birth or environment

that all add up to
who we

think

we are  

but really

we are much more than that
and so is everyone else

and isn’t that AMAZING?!!

and isn’t it amazing also that sometimes we forget
or at least
don’t think about it at all

or get too busy and caught up and distracted by life and responsibilities and the blah blah blah day to day....
and don’t look up
and notice other people
and wonder what their stories are
where they are in their lives right now
how they’re feeling and how they’re doing
and all that

don’t you think?

and doesn’t it make you wonder
curious
and want to ask?