Hmm, what to write about?

I know.

The stars; They radiated down giving me a sense of how insignificant I am…Meh.

The trees; Rooted deep in the life-giving earth, made me feel at one with nature…Whatever.

Society; Aren’t we all just dispensable cogs in its great machinery?...Blah, blah, blah

Why don’t we give this a shot?

The coffee stain on the passenger seat of my car; I told my friend I had a rule about drinking in my new vehicle. He laughed and called me uptight. Now, the stain stares at me and constantly asks me whether I’m a pushover. 

A book considered a ‘classic’; Its influence has lasted centuries. It left me nothing but comatose. What do all these people have that I don’t?

Bug spray; A pesticide that harms the environment. I once argued in front of several people how it’s unethical not to recycle.  Yet those darn gross bugs that might come anywhere near me. 

I don’t know about you, but the latter type of topics takes up far more of my headspace than any of the grand or epic ones.

Too mundane or ordinary to write about?  I actually do know about you, and there’s nothing that you experience as humdrum when they provoke your feelings in any given way. On the surface, coffee stains, bug spray, etc. might not hold a stranger’s attention in conversation for long. But if you bring your self-consciousness or moral quandaries into the mix, now we’re talking.

There isn’t a single person alive that doesn’t have anything interesting happen to them that no one else would care about, if you explain to them why you care.  Even if the particulars of your situation wouldn’t typically be of interest to everyone, others will be able to recognize your sentiments. The ancient Roman playwright Terence said, “I am a human being, and thus nothing human is foreign to me.” Given that, readers will be able to distill from the specifics of your circumstances a lot of the same feelings they have about theirs.

So, we don’t have to search far for inspiration. Heck, we really don’t need to search at all as it’s already there in the details of the things that constantly demand the majority of our attention. Originality and creativity should come into play for sure, but you already have the raw materials. 

I love the big and ‘important’ subjects as much as the next dreamer. But the world is running out of soul-stirring metaphors for the stars and trees.

Bug spray and coffee stains? I don’t think so. There’s plenty of material there to mold and refine the average into the absorbing, the trivial into the thought-provoking, the plain into the profound.