Mastery

“The morning arrived with applause and they made toast”

That sentence is sheer brilliance, I think. It’s from the book that I am reading right now---a collection of short stories called How We Are Hungry, by Dave Eggers---the man who wrote A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius a few years back. His use of language is virtuosic. They way he uses adjectives at times almost redefines them. It’s mind-blowing. His perspectives on the situations he describes, on his characters, on their surroundings, and even on the words themselves are so incredibly original, surprising, creative, and fresh! I feel like I am writing an advertisement for Glade or a Massengill douche here, but it really is a fresh way of looking at the world. And what is truly amazing is that he seems to do it with almost no effort at all. He is truly a master of the English language. There are so few people who truly master anything ever in a lifetime---I admire those people who manage to do it.

I think about mastery a lot, actually. I often stress about whether or not I will ever achieve it myself, although I am, it seems at the very least, undaunted in my efforts to do so. My daily (almost) devotion to practicing making strange noises with my voice are, I guess, a testament of sorts to my own effort to achieve mastery in my own medium.

Believe it or not, it really is little things like that sentence above that get me through the day at times. A little inspiration, if you will. Without little things like that, our world becomes so mundane---why do we take all that is around us so much for granted?