flâneur

The Beautiful Ache of Fleeting People - by Amogh Chaubey

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Lately I’ve noticed something tender and a little unsettling: I fall in love with almost everyone I meet. Not necessarily romantically, nor in the sense of wanting to build a life with them. But in a way that feels just as profound. A conversation with a barista who mentions she loves thunderstorms. A seatmate on a delayed flight who tells me he used to be a drummer. A friend I’ll grow apart from, inevitably. When someone lets their guard down and shows me even a glimpse of themselves — I’m wrecked. Wrecked and grateful. And then…they disappear. We move on. The train stops. The semester ends. Someone moves away or chooses someone else or just drifts. So what do we do with that? How do we hold these connections that come with no guarantee, no closure? Why do they matter if they don’t last? (Don’t roll your eyes! I know they matter, I’m just asking why). Jean-Paul Sartre writes that existence precedes essence. We aren’t born with inherent meaning—we create it through our actions, choices

Lately I’ve noticed something tender and a little unsettling: I fall in love with almost everyone I meet. Not necessarily romantically, nor in the sense of wanting to build a life with them. But in a way that feels just as profound. A conversation with a barista who mentions she loves thunderstorms. A seatmate on a delayed flight who tells me he used to be a drummer. A friend I’ll grow apart from, inevitably. When someone lets their guard down and shows me even a glimpse of themselves — I’m wrecked. Wrecked and grateful. And then…they disappear. We move on. The train stops. The semester…

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