A quiet observer
Monk by the Sea, Caspar Friedrich
If your everyday life appears to be unworthy subject matter, do not complain to life. Complain to yourself. Lament that you are not poet enough to call up its wealth. For the creative artist there is no poverty — nothing is insignificant or unimportant.
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
I've always preferred to keep the world at arm's length, fancying myself an interested but quiet observer, an appreciator and collector of moments and facets of reality that would otherwise go unremarked. Noticing the little things in everyday life was something of a point of pride for me as a kid, and, in hindsight, perhaps an attempt to escape my own head; shyness and social awkwardness made it difficult for me to connect with people and the outside world in other ways.
Naturally I grew to admire writers like David Foster Wallace, Nicholson Baker, and Italo Calvino who transport readers right into the head of their protagonists, whose detailed observations and funny, insightful musings build up to a fully-realized, intimately personal world. These writers, it felt to me, were able to share with the rest of us truths and wonders about the world as if we were firsthand witnesses (and even accomplices) to their idiosyncratic explorations.
And now here I am, inspired by them among many other writers, sharing these small notes composed of my own observations so far. The vast reaches of life, of the world, of memory, of experience, beckon to be studied and described in all their fractal complexity; I am just beginning to stretch my legs and already getting out of breath. Writing publicly, even in this small venue, of my novice findings is difficult and more than a little nerve-wracking.
At the same time, these first steps are undeniably exciting and exhilarating. It feels like picking up what I've always loved doing — observing and making my own sense of the world — but now actually writing about it for others, too, and not just doing it for myself.
(This essay is part of a month-long series of 30 essays.)