Splash No. 266 - A Quiet Life
A Quiet Life
A little while back I was having a conversation about legacy and how it didn’t matter that much to me, since I didn’t necessarily think it was thinking about the distant future that much. I have countless concerns about the future of the planet, but beyond that, our existence on this planet as a species is short relative to the world or the universe as a whole. Every day countless people are forgotten and trying to be remembered feels like a futile endeavor, a fight against time itself. I don’t think I care too much about a legacy. I’d like to be able to focus on living for now than for a future that exists beyond myself.
I read an incredible piece called “Obituary for a Quiet Life” by Jeremy B. Jones, in which the author discusses the life and death of his grandfather Ray Harrell—a man who lived a relatively simple life, focused on raising his family and working his union job for this whole life in rural North Carolina. Jones writes about his grandfather lovingly: showing appreciation for his handiness, his hardiness, and his willingness to see his life as enough, despite how simple it seems in contrast to most. A couple of paragraphs stood out to me:
When the notable figures of our day pass away, they wind up on our screens, short clips documenting their achievements, talking heads discussing their influence. The quiet lives, though, pass on soundlessly in the background. And yet those are the lives in our skin, guiding us from breakfast to bed. They’re the lives that have made us, that keep the world turning.
[...]
All around us are these lives — heads down and arms open — that ignore the siren call of flashy American individualism, of bright lights and center stage. I’m fine right here is the response from the edge of the room, and that contentment is downright subversive. How could you want only that? the world demands. There’s more to have, always more.
As I read this, I couldn’t stop thinking about the influence of the “flashy American individualism” and how much it affected my life. I always had a certain amount of ambition built into me, a desire to be more financially successful than my parents, which almost definitely would require me to leave my hometown and grow in myriad ways. In San Francisco, I’m surrounded by people who sought the same and continue to try to do even more. Most of my friends aren’t satisfied with just being successful in their careers, also having side projects or creative work on the side. Our lives are all fairly loud and chaotic in their own ways, as we strive to find our niches in the world.
I think living in a city in modernity makes it really difficult to find any sort of quietness in life. The default mode is to exist in loudness, to be striving to not only do something with your time, but to be really good at it too. It’s easy to take hobbies to extremes rather than just enjoying them. I started to wonder if I was moving in this direction with my creative hobbies. I am a writer, but I’ve been interested in music too and net art and the intersection of all of these interests. I’ve spent time trying to dig into different ones at different times and found myself getting overwhelmed trying to balance multiple hobbies with a social life and a day job. I even wondered if any of the creative hobbies were even worth it at all. If they were giving me more stress than fulfillment, then was it worth doing them at all?
A few months ago, I read Kevin Kelly’s Excellent Advice for Living, which included the line, “Making art is not selfish; it's for the rest of us. If you don't do your thing, you are cheating us.” I didn’t really resonate with it, since I tend to think that no one is really reading my work at all, but an old email reply to one of my old Splash letters resurfaced. A reader had told me how much they resonated with my work, saying how happy they were that I wrote each week. The writing is worth doing, that’s for sure.
I sometimes imagine myself writing a lot more than I do now, in pursuit of some sort of writing fame and I never find it very appealing. I acknowledge that I would have a long road ahead of me if I ever wanted to reach a major level of writing success, and I’m not interested in putting in the work in to get there. I may not ever be a famous writer whose work changes the lives of hundreds of people, but it still has the capability to affect some people.
Perhaps that’s my form of quietness — I can’t escape a life juggling multiple things, but I can join the countless people in history who silently toiled and created art lost to history. Even though history will forget me, the ones who read my work will remember me, maybe even be shaped by me. I’ll exist in this smallness, content without having to be more.
Drops of the Week
PLAYLIST - fast feels - I made a playlist of mostly electronic songs with breakbeats and female vocals that I've been enjoying a good bit
FILM - The Seventh Seal - insane and incredible movie by Ingmar Bergman about a knight returning from the crusades and playing a chess match against death
POEM - "Everyone Is Acting as if We’re Not Temporary, and I Am Falling Apart in the Privacy of My Own Home" by Kelli Russell Agodon - I wish I didn’t / say how much I hurt on social media / but sometimes I just want to believe I’m not alone
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Softly,
Nikhil