Small things are important, too
Hello, there!
What I’m reading
At the moment, I have three books going:
Weather, by Jenny Offill. I recently read Offill’s previous book, Dept. of Speculation. For the first fifty pages or so, surprisingly, I struggled with Dept. Offill’s writing style can be described as fragmentary, and it seemed each brief paragraph leapt wildly to a new subject, requiring frequent, jarring context-switching.
At some point, however, I realized that sensation had passed, and then I stayed up all night to finish the book. (Well, what really happened is that I could not sleep one night, so I thought I’d read until sleepy, and then I finished the book.)
The book’s rapid-fire observations of daily, mundane moments, in fact, inspired a shift for me in a particular chapter I’m currently writing. I love it when a book I’m reading offers something to me as a writer, and that something isn’t just a momentary fixation, but a useful tool I can bend and apply in my own way.
By the end, I enjoyed Dept. so much that I promptly ordered her next book, which is the aforementioned Weather. Both books are written in the same style, so if that style speaks to you, I can recommend them both.
I’m also reading Do Better: Spiritual Activism for Fighting and Healing From White Supremacy, by Rachel Ricketts.
In the introduction, Ricketts writes:
Though this book is meant to inspire healing and change for all humxns, this book is directed primarily to, though not for, white women+. I did not want to write a book to white women+ (truly!), but white women+ have caused me the most racial harm so I feel compelled to address my first book to them directly. Especially cis women. Still, this book is for errybody. Every-body. I write for Black and Indigenous women+ first and foremost. Every facet of my work is for us and our healing. This book is written to white women+, but it is for us. Our well-being, our humxnity, and our liberation.
I’m reading this one slowly, with full attention. I don’t need to point out the ways in which racism and white supremacy have always existed, or the ways in which they’ve outlined themselves in blinking lights these past four years. I must, too, acknowledge that I, as a white, heterosexual, cisgender, non-disabled, neurotypical American male, benefit from the systems created and fueled by racism and white supremacy. I benefit in ways that people I love and care about do not, and I’m not okay with that.
The third book is The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien. I first read this one many years ago, when I was about ten years old. I’m reading it now with Squish, who sometimes takes over the reading-aloud work, sometimes just listens, and sometimes provides voices for all of the creepiest characters (she’s gotten quite good at a Gollum voice). We’re around a third of the way through this one now.
What I’m doing
This week I’m off work, coinciding with my daughter’s spring break. We aren’t going anyplace; we’re continuing to be careful and stay home until the vaccine is more widely available.
I’m writing! Writing a lot, actually. Not in volume, but in practice. I shuffled some pieces around, so that Part 1 of The Dark Age (or whatever it is ultimately called) has become Part 4, and I’ve been writing a new 1. I’ve always thought of this novel as a very big book, but lately—and perhaps because I’ve read many slimmer novels lately, where every word seems precious and hardworking—I’m wondering if it might be…less weighty. The topic is heavy enough without the book itself needing to anchor a ship, or serve as a chock block for my Jeep.
I’m designing! Well, a little. I’ve taken advantage of the few free days, and have reacquired Photoshop, and purchased a few font families I’ve been trigger-shy of for years now, and set about redesigning the cover of some of my self-published works. I haven’t done anything with them yet; it’s just been pure joy to spend hours this way again. (I haven’t designed a book cover in years, and some of you might recall that I did an awful lot of that once upon a time.)
I’m watching things! Squish and I have finished the entire Harry Potter series. I’d only seen the first four previously, so it’s been a treat to share a completely new experience with her. While she hasn’t declared a favorite movie, she has thoroughly denounced Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince for its emphasis on romance. When two characters kiss, she buries her face in a pillow and cries, “Whyyy? Romance is so disgusting!”
Here and there, Felicia and I are continuing The Expanse. I’ve seen every season to-date, but it’s new to Felicia, and watching it fresh with her has been wonderful. Knowing what’s coming, which she hasn’t encountered yet; seeing the way stories from the most recent season reared their head as early as the first. If you haven’t seen this one, I highly recommend it. It’s Battlestar Galactica, but turned up to a hundred. I advise patience in the early episodes; stick with it through the first four, as it does the hard work of building the world for you. Then grab onto something while it takes off.
I’m gaming! Squish has been quite taken with Halo. We’ll build a map in the game’s Forge, then battle each other awhile, then design maps filled with booby-traps. We’ve ventured a bit into online matchmaking, and she’s thrilled to have had her first pair of double-digit-point games recently. (Her preferred weapons are the Gravity Hammer and the Energy Sword, and she’s vicious with them both.)
We’ve also found a new game, on Steam, called Townscaper. It’s a beautiful, pleasant, stress-free little city builder. You start with a blank canvas, just water and sky, and with a few clicks, begin to build a city. You don’t have to plan waste services or power lines, a la Sim City or Cities: Skylines; you just click.
The first click lays a stone platform.
The second click places a single-story cottage atop that platform.
The third click, depending where you click, might add a new story to the cottage, or a wing, with little stilts supporting it as it extends above the water. The stone platform might sprout a staircase down to the water’s edge, or a little ladder.
The game’s developer, Oskar Stålberg, describes it as:
…an experimental game. Or more of a toy really.
Over on CNET, this reviewer calls it “A game for our times,” and “a gorgeous diversion.”
We’ve played it for hours, discovering surprises like lighthouses, or crane hooks, or walled gardens. Very easily one of the most enjoyable, stress-relieving games I’ve ever played.
It’s small, and it’s comfortable being small.
The beauty and pleasure of ‘small’
Along those lines:
Several weeks ago, I discovered a newsletter called Adventures in Typography, written by Robin Rendle, a British designer who now works in Silicon Valley. The newsletter is, as you might imagine, wonderfully obsessed with the smallest details of letterforms and type design. After reading a few recent editions, I dove into the archive, and read every last one of the pieces I found there (nearly eighty; it’s a lot!).
I found in that archive an issue called “Smaller Things,” which is about exactly that:
Last year I was talking to an engineer on our team who was leaving for Google and I asked him over coffee: why? Not out of disrespect, or a Big Judgmental Why, I just wanted to know what he expected from the new gig.
After a beat, and a few nervous sips of coffee, he replied that it was because of impact. He wanted to work on something that touches millions of lives every day.
Rendle observes:
I know that’s why so many flock to the Bay Area; they want to change the world, they want fast cars and even faster fortunes. They want to work on something that helps everyone in the world. Which is, if you tilt your head to the side when you look at it, pretty admirable.
Note that bit about fast cars, faster fortunes.
But everyone I’ve spoken to that says this, that truly believes they can turn the world on a dime with a few lines of code, is doing it for the fame and prestige and not the work. They’re doing it for entirely the wrong reasons and the actual thing they’re building doesn’t matter so long as it has reach.
Which leads him to a conclusion I wish I’d been mature enough to come to at his age (which I don’t know, but I presume is Younger Than I):
It was at that moment that I knew I want the kind of work that’s…not that. To be honest I don’t give a damn about impact or how many people use the thing I’m working on.
I think this is one of many reasons why I adore letters and typography. No typeface or .otf has ever changed the world and there is no type designer sat at their desk hoping right now that the letter they’re struggling with will make them a millionaire some day.
He closes with:
And I think there’s something bold and maybe even a little courageous about that, about doing such a beautiful thing on such a small scale.
Because small things are important, too.
I’ve had this newsletter sitting open on my desktop since I read it. Obviously it’s because this simple observation stuck with me, had some impact on me. But it resonates, too, because it’s true about both kinds of work I do.
I design software apps. And while anyone who uses that software will experience my work in an obvious way—when they put the tool to use, when they follow paths I’ve laid out for their workflows—they’ll also likely miss, but benefit from, the attention I give to the smallest details. The system of designed things beneath the surface, which work together, one hopes, in a smooth, frictionless sort of way. And which one also hopes are pleasant to surround one’s self with.
(I don’t know when this whole ‘one’ thing began, but there are a lot of ‘ones’ in those last couple of sentences.)
I also write books. And anyone who writes books, or wants to write books, knows that very few books, very few authors, ever change the world in any measurable way. Very few books even change the author’s own life, if we’re honest. Writing is a fairly thankless way to spend a lot of time on something for little notice, little impact.
I love designing things, writing things, from nothing.
It helps to keep my focus, then, on the small things about both. The small things which give me pleasure are maybe treasures for anyone else who stumbles upon them. The ways one story relates to another; the themes that echo throughout a body of work, and aren’t limited to a single book or short story.
Still, it isn’t always easy. There’s that little part of me that wants big, showy things as well. That look at me! part that craves attention for the things I do. I don’t particularly love that part. I know he’s there; I hope I can starve him out, send him packing.
May we all find satisfaction in the little things.
✏️ Until next,
Jg