Surroundings

Variety is the spice of life, surely, but we so seldom revel in the heart-stoppingly profound multiplicity of everyday objects. Our engines of production spill our a conglomeration of goods so widely ranging as to mimic a slap in the face. Night and day they spin turbines and pour molds, drinking up resources and piling up the things we take for granted.

You see, words like “common,” “everyday” and “mundane” fill me to the brim with an irate, foamy bile. Don’t people take the time to see this unconquerable miscellany around themselves? A stew of ideas is constantly boiling over with the creativity of our billion disparate minds.

Let us take pens as an example. The humble inkpen, always at hand and always ready to serve, taken for granted and trodden underfoot. I searched long and hard this afternoon through a gasp-inducing array of ink pens. Colors, thicknesses, grip enhancements and ergonomic correctors. There is an ever-growing range of pocket clips and lids. Push-button, spring-loaded tips show an unforeseen assortment of devious incongruity. And this is all to say nothing of the very ink these ubiquitous tools are meant to dispense!

The semiliquid bound within is a rainbow of choices, dark, light, sparkling, thick, thin and vibrant. Each stroke of some pens runs ruin across all but the most stalwart of pages, ink like a brushfire that won’t set for minutes. Others weakly fade in and out, not quite committed to true statement—one foot in the grave of ghost writing. Black ink like a shadow on white marble. Definitive. Bold. Red ink cursing your failures and cutting you down without a moment’s thought.

I urge each and every one of you to dig deep into the well of physical objects around you. We cannot be whole without appreciating the things around us. As ancient botanists observed the plants and flowers, faces full of pollen, we must become students of the cell phone model and the breakfast cereal box. It is deep within us to conquer by appreciation and knowledge, not mere classification. Let the world rain down with a gross mélange of sundries, clattering and splintering against the asphalt. Let the engines of production bury to my knees that I may sort and collect and be a part of every one.