Again with the delight?

Ross Gay pulls me kicking and screaming into happiness

Ross is on the delights again (eye roll). A few years ago, poet Ross Gay did a break-out book called Book of Delights. Feral Souls will remember me going on about it here. It was nifty. The premise was an essay a day for a year on a delight he noticed. It was simple and refreshing, and for the era it reached the bestseller lists (into and during Covid), it was even necessary.

But recently, Amazon, seeing I liked Book of Delights and algorithmically deciding I’m only one thing in this life, suggested Gay’s newest More Delights. I cringed a bit for Gay. My GenX mind winced at a person seemingly commodifying something originally beautiful and organic. I thought, “Oh, here we go, chicken soup for the soul but edgier. No thanks”.

Shame on me. I doubt anyone came to Monet and said, “Again with the waterlilies, Claude.” Or to Rothko and said, “Color play? Seen it”.

There are worse things to be seen as than the delight guy. And for me to pass on someone giving delight a voice is a worse statement about me than any writing, predictable, commodified, or otherwise.

So I purchased it. And by the second short essay, I felt like someone who had protested going into a room that was a surprise party for me. Shame for my initial reaction faded quickly as the writing did precisely what the first book did for me. It invited me to consider delightful experiences. It’s getting granular with how I’m blessed and how we all are blessed.

Inclining the mind

I again came to realize the act of inclining our minds toward delight is a Herculean chore. It works against every impulse in a mind that finds the broken, the disappointing, the room for improvement. We’re pre-wired to find problems. This is the muscle memory of folks who hope to help the world, and it doesn’t start badly. It can define the launch pad for our soaring efforts. But unbalanced with at least an equal counterweight of naming beauty, it can also send us into deeper darkness than we can imagine.

The writing is excellent, but the win is watching someone unencumbered by looking correct or defending their view, enjoying life, and leading me to copy the effort in my way. The success is when the reader can’t resist becoming a soul, a mind inclined toward goodness; toward the good that is a shadow, a foretaste, a pre-echo of what’s redeeming us.

Who we become

It’s not the ones who can find and name the dark, but the ones who can see a speck of the coming light and, undeterred by this present darkness, name the light — first to themselves and next to the dark world. Does it make us less novel, less compelling? To a world in love with the dark? Probably. I don’t care. Again. Thanks, Ross.

From a review of Gay’s newest:

Gay proves that he’s able to endlessly expand on any minute detail of life in a way that’s not only interesting but that’s often profound, open-ended, and sometimes even revelatory. Whether it’s about a lost cat, an adult wearing braces, or a simple sunflower, Gay’s writing feels at home in this space. It’s clear that these “delights” are a gift not only for the author himself but also for every one of the readers he touches.

His rules are easy enough for anyone to follow. In a recent interview, he said many have. Write daily, write by hand, and write quickly. The by-hand thing takes us out of our tendency to perfect or polish the writing. Computers invite a mechanical perfection that Ross says made his writing worse. Handwriting also means we can be untethered to all of the deceptively helpful benefits of tech. Here’s a journal I love to use. And a few of the implements that make it feel like a luxury.

Find some delights and share them if you’d like. I’ll start.

I love trying to catch a falling leaf. Living here in the northeast, a few trillion colorful sails will descend on their ride to become life-giving nutrients to the tree that gave them life. Just before they make their landing, try to catch one. Think it’s easy? It’s not. They can change trajectory in a fraction of a second in stiff autumn winds. I try not to blow out a knee to get an ESPN-level highlight, and when I succeed, I hold the leaf that lived a few seasons suspended in the sun and rain. I enjoy its texture and it’s surrendered color. And I know again the impermanence of what I thought would always be there. Friends fade, our abilities, our treasures. Hold lightly, don’t cling, but try to catch them, if but briefly.

Be well, Feral Soul.