Why You Should Stare at a Painting for Three Hours
And what happens when two pirates try to sleep train a little girl
Word Stories
There is a pretty heated debate online about whether something as short as six words can be a story. It all originates from a six-word story1 that is (likely inaccurately) attributed to Ernest Hemmingway. Either way, that doesn’t mean single words can’t have their own origin stories.
Tween: Various sources argue when the original meaning of the word “tween” transitioned to mean someone who is a pre-teen. However, J.R.R. Tolkien seems to get the credit for the first use of the word in The Fellowship of the Ring. He used it in reference to hobbits that were between 20 and 33—no longer children but also not adults.
Bling: When I was in college, I watched an episode of Behind the Music on Lil Wayne where I swear they gave him credit for inventing the phrase “bling bling.” However, fellow Cash Money rapper B.G. likely deserves the credit for inventing the word that infiltrated pop culture in the early aughts. If you’re interested, there’s a complete history of the word “from the projects of New Orleans to the pages of Merriam-Webster.”
Humblebrag: Chalk this one up as a collecting string moment. I recently heard Alan Yang from the Parks and Recollection Podcast casually mention that Harris Wittels, one of the writers for Parks and Recreation, invented the word while they were both writing for the show. It all started because Harris created a Twitter account to make fun of celebrities by retweeting their “humblebrags.”
The Value of Stories
Last month while watching the iconic 1998 rom-com You’ve Got Mail, I kept spiraling into deep thoughts about what the story was saying about how we value stories in general. If you don’t know the plot, here’s a rundown: The owner of a small neighborhood bookstore has to fight to keep her store from closing because a larger bookstore with lower prices opens up across the street.
At first I thought, “Are we devaluing the importance of writing and the hard work of authors by accepting the low prices offered by bigger booksellers?”
Then I thought, “But isn’t it also valuable to make important stories and ideas accessible to more people by lowering the barrier of cost?”
And after going back and forth on those thoughts throughout the movie, I thought, “This is complex as hell. I need to stop thinking about it.”
While I don’t think there are clean answers to the questions above, I do think we often consciously or subconsciously devalue stories that take more effort to consume.
Seeing Value Takes Time
Most of us have accepted the fact that we have short attention spans, so we want our content like our Little Caesar’s pizza: hot and ready. Literally. If the person on the phone screen isn’t hot or the content doesn’t deliver immediately, we just keep scrolling. As a result, we become passive consumers of the stories that algorithms calculate to appease our short attention spans. And also like Little Caesar’s, I don’t think that’s bad in moderation, but there are definitely benefits from incorporating better things into our diets.
Jennifer Roberts, a professor of art history at Harvard, has her students start their art research by going to a museum and staring at a painting for three hours. It’s designed to feel excessive, teach patience, and remove them from their everyday surroundings and distractions.
It is commonly assumed that vision is immediate. It seems direct, uncomplicated, and instantaneous . . . . But what students learn in a visceral way in this assignment is that in any work of art there are details and orders and relationships that take time to perceive.
Don’t underestimate the powers of patience, of giving your full attention to something that isn’t designed for immediate gratification, and of choosing to see and appreciate the value of a good story.
Sentence(s) of the Week
This week’s sentences come from my new favorite short story, the hilarious Learning the Ropes by Simon Rich. Highly recommend putting in the effort to read this wonderful tale of two blood-thirsty pirates learning to co-parent a little stowaway.
The crew got angry at the Captain for crewing us, and he got defensive-like, and said, “how was I supposed to know these gentlemen were pirates?” And his crew pointed out some “red flags” me and Rotten Pete be having, like our peg legs, and our eye patches, and the parrot I be keeping on me shoulder, which always be saying, “shiver me timbers,” which be a pretty pirate thing to say.
Thanks for reading,
Braden
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.