SAT
Something happened today
I kept using the word ordinary, especially when describing the little moments that had begun to interest me so much. Then the irony struck me: perhaps there is no such thing as ordinary once we begin to notice what is actually there. A familiar room is full of physical processes I cannot see, a routine conversation carries a lifetime of experience, and a tiny decision can change what happens next.
I had been using the word ordinary affectionately, because these discoveries weren’t arriving with fanfare. They came from chores, conversations, music, mistakes, and moments that would usually be forgotten by bedtime. But I began wondering whether the word sometimes made me underestimate what was present.
I knew the danger of turning every ordinary thing into a declaration of cosmic wonder. If I told someone that a cup of tea was an astonishing arrangement of atoms and history, they might reasonably ask whether I would like to drink it before it went cold. But the silliness contained something real. Familiarity makes much of the world vanish from attention, and occasionally I can catch it reappearing.
I wasn't trying to live in a constant state of amazement. That sounds exhausting, and perhaps a little difficult for everyone nearby. I simply wanted to remain available to surprise. It was enough that an ordinary object, a song, or a sentence could sometimes reveal more than I'd noticed yesterday.
The word ‘ordinary’ had become almost a habit in these stories. Ordinary mornings, ordinary choices, ordinary people. Then I began to wonder whether I was using the word to make experiences sound smaller than they were. The existence of anything at all is an astonishingly complicated arrangement, even if I encounter it every day.
I didn’t need to abolish the word. It helps us communicate. But familiarity isn’t proof that something is simple or without wonder. The tomato on my plate could remain an ordinary tomato and still be a remarkable thing to have grown.
The physical world alone is astonishing when examined closely. Add the histories and feelings that people bring into an ordinary conversation, and the familiar scene becomes almost impossibly rich. I didn’t need to forbid the word or insist that every moment was magical. I wanted to remember that the label describes how often I encounter something, not necessarily how much there is to discover within it. Familiarity is useful. It can also be a very convincing disguise.
Of course we need a word for the everyday. I’m not proposing that we ban it. I simply wanted to remember that familiarity and insignificance are not the same thing. A day can look ordinary from the outside while containing something worth discovering from the inside.
