My mom taught me how to embrace the ordinary. A few years ago I lived in East Boston. My neighborhood had above ground power lines that I hated. I thought my street had too much concrete, too much trash littering the sidewalks, and too many fading and crumbling facades for it to be lovable. Then my mom came to visit. I expected her to disdain it like I had, but when she saw my street she was actually in awe over how beautiful it was - even and especially the hideous power lines! She gushed over my ugly street and I was shocked. But my mom is incapable of an inauthentic emotional expression so I looked again. All at once, I saw the charm and the loveliness of my very ordinary street. I felt like I gained a superpower that day.
Thanks for this great response, Mia. Your mom ‘gets it’ in the way that very few do. May we all one day reach that level of enlightenment.
I grew up in an ugly town. Grey and industrial, poverty and graffiti, iron grey English sky. I hated it, rebelled against it. Left as soon as I could.
But now that I am older, and I hope a little wise, I go home to visit and start to see it’s charm- the places modernity hasn’t decimated, the rare well cared for patch of garden of the poor widow who won’t let her pride be subsumed by circumstance, the playgrounds and pubs and people.
You have to squint, you have to use all of your imagination and empathy, but you can find such things if you look hard enough.
Excellent piece here Thomas. I think almost everyone feels the nausea of the modern entertainment, where everything is caricatured and exacerbated to the maximum. Almost every Netflix original is the re-writing of an existing story with obscene layers of drama to satisfy the over-stimulated and desensitized average consumer. Kinda what a cupcake is to a Saint-Honoré (yeah, I'm French).
I was recently reading an article Umberto Eco wrote about Ian Fleming's style in the James Bond series. The question was roughly "Why have these books been so popular, when many other spy and cold wars pulps were not?". Eco has a very interesting theory that echoes (pun intended) with your article: Fleming lingers and put emphasis not on the unknown, but on the already known; the little things that will resonate with every reader. For instance, the attack on Fort Knox in Goldfinger takes only 5 or 6 pages, whereas the golf game with said Goldfinger at the beggining of the book lingers during 20 pages. Contrary to authors like Jules Verne, he does not describe the Moonraker rocket for more that a page. But he does spend almost 30 pages of the game of bridge between Bond and Hugo Drax, taking its time to describe the table, the veal cutlets served before, the specific champagne they're drinking an so on. He does not describe Dr No's underground facility but he describes at length the menu of the beach restaurant, the Jamaican countryside, the trip to the island in a little fishing boat, etc. Fleming knows none of his readers will identify with robbing Fort Knox, but he knows they will with the little acts they "could" be doing themselves and that make the story more "real" and tangible (almost "physical) . You don't particularly remember a Bond book because of the quality of the story; they are more often that not kitsch and conventional. You remember it because of the atmosphere he's managed to create. And this atmosphere almost always works through descriptions of mundane activities, unimpressive road trips and trivia interspersed with brief moments of bravado and action. In that sense, embracing the ordinary IS the way to create the extraordinaire.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by Sabastien, and thank you for this absolutely amazing comment.
I think that you (via the late great Umberto Eco) are really on to something here. Even in the most fantastical of stories it is the familiar realism of mundane details that draws us in to the narrative.
And I suspect that when critics refer to ‘pacing’ they are often referring to the inclusion of this element. If a story- like a life- is too fast it is unmemorable, no matter how exciting all of the various incidents are. You need that breathing space.
My contention, then, is that life itself now is too fast and so goes by unremarked and that this Fleming-esque attention to detail and scenery is what is needed to re-enchant it.
Your comment is sparking all kinds of ideas here, Sebastien. I am learning that that’s the beauty of this comment section.
Thank you. I’m pleased with how this one turned out.
In the few years that I have been writing and commenting online I have always argued variations on this ordinariness theme. Exceptionalism is a trap and the ordinariness of our own reality is the solid foundation from which we can build a life.
As much as I am for the imaginative life, I believe we have to start from the concrete present of the day and place that we find ourselves in. The beauty of life is in these commonplace details (hence the name of this account)
Thanks for taking the time to comment, I hope I’ll be hearing from you again.
Fascinating. I prefer non-fiction books as well as develop them for clients in my business. I know there are historical fiction books. Are there (or could there be) fictional non-fiction titles? Would these books be fables? Capturing more details could help make ideas stick and improve the experience. One of my favorite books we developed was the book, The Friday Morning Club. Unfortunately, it was hardly a blip and its impact was insignificant but still a title I enjoyed developing it the most. I guess art sometimes is most appreciated by the creator. This lesson alone made it worth all the effort.
Hi Steve, thanks for stopping by. I appreciate the comment.
I guess historical fiction (as you say) or auto-fiction (Knausgard etc) is as close as you are going to get to ‘fictional non-fiction’.
Art on the whole goes unappreciated, it’s an undeniable fact. I suspect that for even very successful artists the work they personally like the best is their least successful. It’s just the way it goes.
Worrying about how the work is received is only human, but it is something that would be ideally transcended.
I believe that the tests of the artistic temperament is this- ‘say that I could peer in to the future and tell you for a fact that no one will ever see your art, would you still create?’ If the response is ‘yes’ you have a true creator on your hands.
As you say, the lessons learned in the process are the true gain of creating.
Thank you Tom for the thoughtful response. I appreciate your perspective especially since it makes me think deeper than I would with a generic response. It's tough to not be drawn into the "attention arena" to seek approval but there are some not to obvious gifts when you focus on the work and not the acclaim.
As I draw away from social media I have made it a point of honour to respond to every newsletter and blogpost comment to the best of my ability. Not simply post ‘ty’ and move on. This is how you build a community.
I am also making it a point of honour to leave a comment on every blog that I read. No one does this anymore and I know as a writer that it means a great deal to receive such comments. Away from the cheap dopamine of twitter etc, you feel like you are talking to yourself when you publish blogs and emails.
Now, I don’t know how much of an impact I can have as one individual but I am trying to at least start some small ripples. In my gut these feel like profoundly correct actions and so I persist in them.
Great article. I've grown to detest the catchall term "mindfulness", but I believe paying attention to the little details that make up an ordinary day is a terribly important habit to build. It makes the world a whole lot more beautiful. Days take on an elegant simplicity, coffee tastes better, other people become more interesting, the process of living simply improves.
I think lessons like those in the article are important even for the wildly ambitious, entrepreneur types among us, perhaps even more so, because for the most part the process of building a business consists of completing the same, relatively boring, repetitive tasks day after day, coupled with time spent creating and mapping out a vision (imagination -> reality), which in itself requires focus and being in the present moment, fully engaged.
There's a very human element in your writing, especially given your degree of erudition, which I greatly admire. Looking forward to the next one.
That’s very kind of you to say, Conor and it’s really gratifying to get regular comments from someone who really ‘gets’ what I’m trying to say here.
The ‘human’ element, as you call it, is the most important part of what I’m trying to achieve here. Because what else is there? A lot of what I encounter online* seems to ignore simple, everyday, human things and instead is written from a detached, above-it-all, exceptionalist perspective.
(*especially on twitter, which I am working towards extricating myself from as we speak)
I can’t see how such work can last. And It seems like a terrible trap- to fake a persona which you then have to continually maintain or else the whole edifice you have built your esteem around crumbles.
Better to just be honest and ordinary and to let go. It’s freeing, ultimately. I guess this is the message I am trying to get across with these emails. Or one of them at least.
I don’t know, I just write it as it comes.
Anyway, thanks again Conor, and hopefully I’ll be hearing from you next issue.
Unfortunately, I find the the escape rather enticing. I'm very future-orientated so I rarely find the mental space to embrace the ordinary. But when I do, the stillness that I feel is beyond words.
Escapism is supposed to be enticing and it is also ubiquitous. There are relatively few acts that are not now escapist in nature. But with some reflection we can see that what we are trying to escape is the consequences of a world that has orientated itself towards trying to escape from itself. This can’t be a good thing.
As with all of these newsletters, I am just making observations and trying to get a handle on things. I am in absolutely no position to judge or admonish. I’m as escapist as the next guy, although I guess the first step towards getting over a problem is to acknowledge and name it.
Anyway. Thanks for reading and hopefully I’ll see you back here next Sunday.
Thomas, excellent piece and spot on. What fiction would you recommend?
My mom taught me how to embrace the ordinary. A few years ago I lived in East Boston. My neighborhood had above ground power lines that I hated. I thought my street had too much concrete, too much trash littering the sidewalks, and too many fading and crumbling facades for it to be lovable. Then my mom came to visit. I expected her to disdain it like I had, but when she saw my street she was actually in awe over how beautiful it was - even and especially the hideous power lines! She gushed over my ugly street and I was shocked. But my mom is incapable of an inauthentic emotional expression so I looked again. All at once, I saw the charm and the loveliness of my very ordinary street. I felt like I gained a superpower that day.
Thanks for this great response, Mia. Your mom ‘gets it’ in the way that very few do. May we all one day reach that level of enlightenment.
I grew up in an ugly town. Grey and industrial, poverty and graffiti, iron grey English sky. I hated it, rebelled against it. Left as soon as I could.
But now that I am older, and I hope a little wise, I go home to visit and start to see it’s charm- the places modernity hasn’t decimated, the rare well cared for patch of garden of the poor widow who won’t let her pride be subsumed by circumstance, the playgrounds and pubs and people.
You have to squint, you have to use all of your imagination and empathy, but you can find such things if you look hard enough.
But your mom could have told you that.
Hope to hear from you again, Mia.
Tom.
Excellent piece here Thomas. I think almost everyone feels the nausea of the modern entertainment, where everything is caricatured and exacerbated to the maximum. Almost every Netflix original is the re-writing of an existing story with obscene layers of drama to satisfy the over-stimulated and desensitized average consumer. Kinda what a cupcake is to a Saint-Honoré (yeah, I'm French).
I was recently reading an article Umberto Eco wrote about Ian Fleming's style in the James Bond series. The question was roughly "Why have these books been so popular, when many other spy and cold wars pulps were not?". Eco has a very interesting theory that echoes (pun intended) with your article: Fleming lingers and put emphasis not on the unknown, but on the already known; the little things that will resonate with every reader. For instance, the attack on Fort Knox in Goldfinger takes only 5 or 6 pages, whereas the golf game with said Goldfinger at the beggining of the book lingers during 20 pages. Contrary to authors like Jules Verne, he does not describe the Moonraker rocket for more that a page. But he does spend almost 30 pages of the game of bridge between Bond and Hugo Drax, taking its time to describe the table, the veal cutlets served before, the specific champagne they're drinking an so on. He does not describe Dr No's underground facility but he describes at length the menu of the beach restaurant, the Jamaican countryside, the trip to the island in a little fishing boat, etc. Fleming knows none of his readers will identify with robbing Fort Knox, but he knows they will with the little acts they "could" be doing themselves and that make the story more "real" and tangible (almost "physical) . You don't particularly remember a Bond book because of the quality of the story; they are more often that not kitsch and conventional. You remember it because of the atmosphere he's managed to create. And this atmosphere almost always works through descriptions of mundane activities, unimpressive road trips and trivia interspersed with brief moments of bravado and action. In that sense, embracing the ordinary IS the way to create the extraordinaire.
Thanks for taking the time to stop by Sabastien, and thank you for this absolutely amazing comment.
I think that you (via the late great Umberto Eco) are really on to something here. Even in the most fantastical of stories it is the familiar realism of mundane details that draws us in to the narrative.
And I suspect that when critics refer to ‘pacing’ they are often referring to the inclusion of this element. If a story- like a life- is too fast it is unmemorable, no matter how exciting all of the various incidents are. You need that breathing space.
My contention, then, is that life itself now is too fast and so goes by unremarked and that this Fleming-esque attention to detail and scenery is what is needed to re-enchant it.
Your comment is sparking all kinds of ideas here, Sebastien. I am learning that that’s the beauty of this comment section.
Hope to hear from you again,
Tom.
Bravo, Thomas!
Thank you. I’m pleased with how this one turned out.
In the few years that I have been writing and commenting online I have always argued variations on this ordinariness theme. Exceptionalism is a trap and the ordinariness of our own reality is the solid foundation from which we can build a life.
As much as I am for the imaginative life, I believe we have to start from the concrete present of the day and place that we find ourselves in. The beauty of life is in these commonplace details (hence the name of this account)
Thanks for taking the time to comment, I hope I’ll be hearing from you again.
Tom,
Fascinating. I prefer non-fiction books as well as develop them for clients in my business. I know there are historical fiction books. Are there (or could there be) fictional non-fiction titles? Would these books be fables? Capturing more details could help make ideas stick and improve the experience. One of my favorite books we developed was the book, The Friday Morning Club. Unfortunately, it was hardly a blip and its impact was insignificant but still a title I enjoyed developing it the most. I guess art sometimes is most appreciated by the creator. This lesson alone made it worth all the effort.
Hi Steve, thanks for stopping by. I appreciate the comment.
I guess historical fiction (as you say) or auto-fiction (Knausgard etc) is as close as you are going to get to ‘fictional non-fiction’.
Art on the whole goes unappreciated, it’s an undeniable fact. I suspect that for even very successful artists the work they personally like the best is their least successful. It’s just the way it goes.
Worrying about how the work is received is only human, but it is something that would be ideally transcended.
I believe that the tests of the artistic temperament is this- ‘say that I could peer in to the future and tell you for a fact that no one will ever see your art, would you still create?’ If the response is ‘yes’ you have a true creator on your hands.
As you say, the lessons learned in the process are the true gain of creating.
See you on Sunday.
Tom.
Thank you Tom for the thoughtful response. I appreciate your perspective especially since it makes me think deeper than I would with a generic response. It's tough to not be drawn into the "attention arena" to seek approval but there are some not to obvious gifts when you focus on the work and not the acclaim.
My pleasure Steve.
As I draw away from social media I have made it a point of honour to respond to every newsletter and blogpost comment to the best of my ability. Not simply post ‘ty’ and move on. This is how you build a community.
I am also making it a point of honour to leave a comment on every blog that I read. No one does this anymore and I know as a writer that it means a great deal to receive such comments. Away from the cheap dopamine of twitter etc, you feel like you are talking to yourself when you publish blogs and emails.
Now, I don’t know how much of an impact I can have as one individual but I am trying to at least start some small ripples. In my gut these feel like profoundly correct actions and so I persist in them.
Thanks again for getting in touch.
Tom.
Great article. I've grown to detest the catchall term "mindfulness", but I believe paying attention to the little details that make up an ordinary day is a terribly important habit to build. It makes the world a whole lot more beautiful. Days take on an elegant simplicity, coffee tastes better, other people become more interesting, the process of living simply improves.
I think lessons like those in the article are important even for the wildly ambitious, entrepreneur types among us, perhaps even more so, because for the most part the process of building a business consists of completing the same, relatively boring, repetitive tasks day after day, coupled with time spent creating and mapping out a vision (imagination -> reality), which in itself requires focus and being in the present moment, fully engaged.
There's a very human element in your writing, especially given your degree of erudition, which I greatly admire. Looking forward to the next one.
That’s very kind of you to say, Conor and it’s really gratifying to get regular comments from someone who really ‘gets’ what I’m trying to say here.
The ‘human’ element, as you call it, is the most important part of what I’m trying to achieve here. Because what else is there? A lot of what I encounter online* seems to ignore simple, everyday, human things and instead is written from a detached, above-it-all, exceptionalist perspective.
(*especially on twitter, which I am working towards extricating myself from as we speak)
I can’t see how such work can last. And It seems like a terrible trap- to fake a persona which you then have to continually maintain or else the whole edifice you have built your esteem around crumbles.
Better to just be honest and ordinary and to let go. It’s freeing, ultimately. I guess this is the message I am trying to get across with these emails. Or one of them at least.
I don’t know, I just write it as it comes.
Anyway, thanks again Conor, and hopefully I’ll be hearing from you next issue.
Tom.
Another great piece, Tom!
Unfortunately, I find the the escape rather enticing. I'm very future-orientated so I rarely find the mental space to embrace the ordinary. But when I do, the stillness that I feel is beyond words.
Thanks Tom,
Escapism is supposed to be enticing and it is also ubiquitous. There are relatively few acts that are not now escapist in nature. But with some reflection we can see that what we are trying to escape is the consequences of a world that has orientated itself towards trying to escape from itself. This can’t be a good thing.
As with all of these newsletters, I am just making observations and trying to get a handle on things. I am in absolutely no position to judge or admonish. I’m as escapist as the next guy, although I guess the first step towards getting over a problem is to acknowledge and name it.
Anyway. Thanks for reading and hopefully I’ll see you back here next Sunday.
Tom.