On ordinary life

"I have a very ordinary, even flat life, but I like it." I ask my interlocutor to repeat. We were standing, some friends around us. We started by questioning my novels, the meaning I brought to them, why I was writing. As I am talkative, it lasted a long time. Then, as the subject dried up, I sent the ball back to the one who was asking me all these questions.

"Yes, I have a very ordinary life. I sometimes have dreams, I would like to write, make films, but after thirty minutes, I get tired. So I don’t have much to say."

So my interlocutor was serious. It was not a false humility to make me look even more valuable than I am. I immediately replied that there are no ordinary people, that every life deserves to be told. He conceded it to me without really believing it too much. He was exactly my age and, a few minutes later, I lost interest in him, shocked and disappointed.

How can someone not be passionate? How can we not be interested in, I don’t know what, but still interested in something? Are there people without any thought of the future, who softly swallow the hours?

For all we know, they are happier than I am, because it’s true that you have to be wary of passionate people; they create hyperboles so easily. Sometimes there is not much difference between an artist and an alcoholic. I have as proof this friend who received us for his birthday and during which the conversion mentioned above took place. Until a week ago, I really appreciated this friend, but I have since learned that his passion is fraudulently fed on other people’s money (he brazenly stole Ganymede’s money as treasurer.)

If I too am often in the ordinary of life, I try to dig into my conscience. The artist is not out of the ordinary; he only takes a different look at these hours, which pass at the same pace for everyone.

An ordinary person who works in an ordinary place and returns home to his or her family of ordinary children and their ordinary pleasures and desires is only the vision of an artist trying to get out of his or her own monotony. Every vital part is a real miracle, and it’s not a cliché.

I will be quick to be told that there are fools, violent, retarded, vulgar, lewd, bestial people who slit the throats of their neighbors and who have their throats slit in return. I will be told that the ordinary is sometimes better than these political or religious elucubrations, that an "ordinary" person does less harm than a seeker of truth.

This word "ordinary" is usually used everywhere, it is a service to eccentrics and artists by providing them with their false pretexts to act differently. It also serves the devotees who have made it into masses and masses.

Let us offer a definition. The ordinary is what is ordered, what does not deviate from the norm, what fits into a certain mold. Moreover, what is, for a time, an eccentricity causing anger and misunderstanding, very often becomes the ordinary of the next day.

The subject is so vast, so contradictory. The ordinary would be to originality what shadow is to the sun? Are they only reflections of the same reality? The fantastic, the grotesque, the divine, the scandalous, the wonderful, all these great worlds of drama and comedy are magnifying effects over the tenacious and thick reality that seems more ordered and calm. Behind our skin, our organs move; behind this rock atoms burst, beyond this sky so black at night are woven poisoned and kaleidoscopic interstellar ballets. The ordinary is only a lie if you make it true. The extraordinary is the simple desire to pierce one’s shell and transform oneself, no matter how much one steps into the unknown’s territory. It means getting out of your box, shifting boxes, taking the old one back, trying to turn it upside down, undoing it, rebuilding it.

There’s a little bit of that when you go to the movies to immerse yourself in a universe that’s not ours. Ah, escape! We all dream of it! All voyages are allowed when you take the time to do so. On condition, of course, that our flights do not overshadow others. Sometimes you have to not listen to those other journeys, however, and not be afraid to shake them. The subject is so broad, I repeat, so contradictory. I get excited, I get excited.

I have to get my air back because I’m getting lost. I will never be able to conclude this text. It’s late, I have no answer and it’s better that way. So I have nothing to say to this man who was indulging in his flat life. Everything ends in dust.

However, I suspect this man is lying. Every live being seeks its food. I think this man is out of his ordinary when he ejaculates, the moment he has wanted to ejaculate. And that’s already something, even if it’s just one of those evanescent creations of the mind. It is a promising first draft...