Sharon Van Etten, A Crime || Everything Everywhere All At Once || (myself) || Bush, Glycerine || Fiona

A fleeting moment of happiness is still worth celebrating. Even if you’re back to square one the next day. Moments matter.

That C.S. Lewis quote about being "old enough for fairy tales again" is really popular in this section of tumblr, but I think I've hit an opposite stage where I'm old enough for realism again. As a teenager in English class, realism seemed like the boring, baseline option that limited your imagination to only the dullest parts of daily life. If I wanted real life, I'd just live it! Stories should give us something bigger and brighter and more exciting!

But as I get older, I'm starting to understand that realism isn't about limiting yourself to the real world, it's about appreciating it. It's about noticing and caring about those tiny details in life. It's about looking at the seemingly ordinary and unexciting people and saying that their stories are worth telling, too. There's a beauty in gazing upon this world in delicate detail and drawing out those fine shades of nuance that you don't notice in the bustle of actually living life. Realism lets you slow down and recognize that our world has wonders, too, and they don't all have to be big and flashy to be worth our attention.

Younger me also got the impression that realism was depressing--we don't get happy endings because they're not realistic. And it's true that realism has a greater share of sad endings, but that can be a comfort. As you grow up, you have more and more experiences tell you that the happiness of life is buried in a lot of murkier emotions--a lot of turmoil and uncertainty and bad decisions--and realism says that's okay. The story's worth telling even if it doesn't end well, even if people don't rise above their baser natures, even if things are a bit dull. Realism can be happier, in some ways, than those bigger, brighter genre stories, because it acknowledges those murkier imperfections of life and says that they don't erase happiness or make someone's story not worth telling.

Lewis' quote is great, but it's not the whole story. Like Chesterton says, children are fascinated by fairy tales, but the youngest children are fascinated by reality--"A child of seven is excited to hear that Tommy opened a door and found a dragon, while a child of three is excited to hear that Tommy opened a door." Fantasy is a fantastic escape, but like all travel, the point of it is to make us see our own world more clearly when we return home. And that's where realism comes in. Those types of stories aren't about casting off childish fancy and focusing on the grim details of adulthood--they can be about regaining an even more innocent and child-like wonder.

Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934

compilation

hobbies don’t have to be witnessed to be valid.

please: read, game, run, write, take photos alone. these things and their results don’t always have to be shared; doing them for yourself is good.

do want to share them? that’s good too

Jack Gilbert, from Collected Poems; "Waking at Night"

i love listening to MUSIC!!!!!! and imagining things happening

there is no unlived life or alternative reality where everything went right…. there is only here and now what are you going to do with it

Quote of the day

i feel so heavy i want to cry but i can't cry so i listen to sad music, watch sad movies and i cry to them but i still feel so heavy??? why am i like this? hahaha