Craving remarkable things
I’ve been closely following the scent of remarkable things, content, books, art, design, insights. My craving for remarkable things is at an all time high of late. I define remarkable as something that elicits a bit of wow, its distinctive and leaves a lasting impression. Here’s the dictionary definition:
Remarkable refers to something extraordinary, notable, or worthy of attention due to its exceptional qualities, distinctive features, or outstanding significance. It implies a level of excellence or distinction that sets a particular thing apart from the ordinary, making it noteworthy or memorable
For me when I stumble across something remarkable, it usually elicits an intellectual or emotional resonance, akin to finding some rare jewel. It also leaves me feeling super grateful and lucky I found it.
Here is a sampling of remarkable works I've encountered over the years - Chimamanda's "Half of a Yellow Sun," "Zenzele," "Jane Eyre," "Middlemarch," "The Street," June Jordan's poems, Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations," Christopher Hitchen's essays, the contributions of Zora Neale Hurston, Ida B. Wells, Viola Davis, “Boyz n Da Hood", Keith Sweat, King of New Jack Swing (90s music fusing hip hop and singing and if you don’t know the baby making prowess of Keith, I can’t help you:) “The Handmaid’s Tale,” neuroscience research. These diverse works span from the Roman Empire era to contemporary times. While time may gauge their lasting impact, their remarkability is evident from the moment I discovered them.
Here’s my rubric for remarkability:
Capturing the current zeitgeist and future zeigeists: Remarkable works articulate sentiments that resonate with the spirit of the times and/or future, offering a language for feelings and ideas that were previously unexpressed. Writers like Chimamanda Adichie, Arundhati Roy, Zora Neale Hurston, Ida B. Wells, and the Bronte sisters demonstrated the ability to grasp the essence of their era in a way that is still significant today.
They also seem to embody Elizabeth Gilbert’s concept of Big Magic. Gilbert posits that creativity is a living entity that comes to individuals, inviting them to seize the opportunity; if embraced, magic ensues. If they don’t, it floats to the next person ready to grasp it. These writers seized the "big magic" that came their way, resulting in the creation of remarkable works.
Intellectual brilliance. It’s smart and intelligent: It evokes admiration for the individual’s depth and breadth of knowledge, insight, and skill level. The work surpasses average understanding, it’s way ahead of their class. It’s the class prefect by far.
It crosses two or more disciplines: the work touches on many disciplines such as culture studies, history, philosophy, politics, science, different music genres, art medium, media, psychology. The work transcends and connects dots across bodies of work. This adds layers of complexity and depth to the work, making it transformative.
What would you add to this rubric?
To be quite honest, it’s been hard to apply this rubric in a lot of things that’s being churned out today. While there are undoubtedly remarkable things out there, they often seem few and far between. Today, we are inundated with an incessant stream of content, yet discerning the remarkable from the commonplace requires shifting through a lot of copy and paste, redundant crap.
I wonder if we are getting copy and paste because the internet is shaping our lives so much that now everything looks alike. I read this very interesting article on how coffee shop asthetics all looks the same from California to Tokyo. There used to diversity in coffee shops around the world, but now they are all copy and paste. Perhaps uniformity is par for the course now because we are all plugged into the same algorithm or maybe we just aren’t living unique, divergent lives anymore. Are we copy and paste humans now, too, lol?
As I write this, I am holding the thought that what is considered remarkable varies from person to person. However, the universal response it should evoke is a recognition of its brilliance, prompting, "goodness, this is smart!" Also, remarkable work doesn't necessarily have to be highbrow; it can manifest in the simplest forms, from a YouTube video to even TikTok content.
All this to say, I am on the hunt for remarkable things. Are you as activated as I am about remarkable things? What have you encountered lately that you felt was remarkable?