Another word on the ordinary

At one of Lee's blogs, lowebrow, a post on how the word "brilliant" is becoming overused, and how we thirst to have our children and ourselves recognized as extraordinary, when in fact we can't all be.

Lee's protagonist Jesse in Mortal Ghost, her online novel, is nothing but extraordinary. If I remember correctly, he is:

a touch healer
a psychic
impossibly well read
impossibly athletic
(coining this now) an autopyrotechnos (spontaneous cumbustor)

among other things-- you'll want to read Chapter 21 to see at least one other thing, and a new direction for the story. But Jesse's overarching ambition is to be as unnoticeable as possible, and the central tension in the first twenty chapters of the book is whether this extraordinary person can fit in happily to a family-- given how his gifts destroyed his previous one.

In this Jesse is very Greek, in a way like Heracles, who, according to some versions of his life, bookended his magnificent feat of completing the 12 Impossible Labors with the murders of his first and second wives. Heracles, the most outstanding person who cannot ever escape his outstandingness.

Jesse's question is the question of all teenagers-- do I fit in society? For the first eleven or twelve years of one's life the question is moot. Of course one fits, by default, into a family of some kind.

But then, at puberty, a new inevitability opens up: impending adulthood, and the need to find one's place as a free-standing member of the community. It was in the summer of my ninth year that I realized, overthinker that I was, that I only had so many endless summers of baseball, hopscotch, and The Match Game at 2:30 PM every afternoon on Channel 7. I remember mentally ticking off the years: 10, 11, 12. Then I would be growing up. I would be like my friends' older siblings, writing messages to the opposite sex in yearbooks. "I'm sorry I treated you bad this year."

Recently I saw The Dead Poets Society again after many years. "Seize the day, boys," Robin Williams' character says to his students, "Make your lives extraordinary."

Was that when the current American craze to have everyone stand out began? Yuppies, another word for baby-boomers in their early 30's, were having children in the 80's, the decade of Dead Poets. They popularized the kindergarten that teaches French and the overscheduled child. They became famous for wanting "The Best" in every category for themselves and their children.

Currently The Disney Channel, a favorite of my daughter, runs a 24/7 dream factory for its viewers. It constantly features children who go for what they want, even if it is just collecting plastic insects.

For one character in Dead Poets Society, following his dream becomes a nightmare. His father wants him to become-- what is it, a lawyer, I think-- but he wants to be an actor. He plays Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, then ends his life like Heracles, unable to tolerate the gap between his outstandingness and his family.

I don't know if this cultural phenomenon will make any difference in the future. Maybe people will migrate to ordinaryness as they get older. Maybe, like Lee, they will use their extraordinary talents in a modest, wise way. Or maybe more and more of them will become frustrated at the impossibility of all of us realizing our own bliss, and some negative consequence will ensue.

In any case, what with global warming and nuclear proliferation, let's hope the world itself survives long enough for all us wannabe heroes to see ourselves through.

photo: here

Comments

[Michele]

Actually, Neil's dad wants him to go into medicine... (I adore this film - I love the fact that it's chockfull of poetry !)

You make an interesting suggestion re. Lee's Jesse and Heracles...

[bob mustin]

DPS came out, as I remember, about the same time as The Big Chill, in which a friend of a group of former counterculturalists commits suicide. At the funeral, the pastor (and I forget the exact line) said "When did being a good man among common people become not good enough?"
In a time when every Little Leaguer gets a trophy, and every family member becomes irate when a student gets something less than a B, I have to wonder when reality begins to set in.

[DF]

Welcome to BwP, Michele. I hope you enjoy your stay here.

As you know, being a writer can really feed and starve that ambition to be extraordinary, Bob. A writer can write better than 99% of the population at his craft and still not have a hope of publishing a commercial book, for a whole raft of reasons.

That's one reason why I like and follow Lee Lowe. She is generously talented writer who enjoys writing for its own sake. A good role model.