The Magic of the Mundane

In the year I was born, my name was the number one choice for boys. I’m a middle child, I wear the most common sizes in men’s clothing, and I’d say I’m no Hemsworth, but I’m cute enough. By nearly every metric, I am just average.

That used to bother me a lot. Just being average. I didn’t need to be a world-breaker or someone written into history books; I just didn’t want to be boring.

I did the things the background characters do. I watched, I learned, and I realized the best stories aren't about the heroes anyway.

Life is a lot like the movies: it’s fun to watch the main characters, but it’s more interesting to scan the background. The main characters stick to the script; they do exactly what they're supposed to. But the extra accidentally leaving a Starbucks cup on a table in a medieval period piece? That’s who we want to know about.

We convince ourselves we're boring just because we look similar on the surface. I see a lot of "Default Settings" white guys wandering around, but how many of them have a double uvula? I wonder if our metric for "unique" is slightly overstated these days.

The hard part is where to find it. Instagram and YouTube make the search easy if you're okay with whatever the algorithm serves, but if you want the good stuff, you have to go digging.

Recently, I went to a small coffee bar. It was your run-of-the-mill Nashville spot: art on the walls, people glued to machines, and a lot of denim. I plopped down on a stool, annoyed that I had to leave my house. My barista, a friendly young Middle Eastern gentleman, seemed way too excited to have me as a customer. Maybe I was the only one there, but he lingered nearby, chatting casually while making my coffee. I capitulated and decided to investigate this weirdo for myself. Turns out, he does close-up magic.

I know, not Earth-shattering, but have you ever watched really skilled close-up magic? It’s hard not to be fascinated. I guess that sums up my metric for interesting: Can I do it?

The answer, usually, is a hard no. I can’t do sleight of hand. I can't build a deck. I can't hit a high C. And frankly, I'm relieved.

Being average is the ultimate VIP pass to the audience. If I were the "World Breaker" I wanted to be as a kid, I’d be too busy holding up the sky to notice the guy making quarters disappear next to the espresso machine.

So, I’ll stick to the background. The lighting is softer, the expectations are lower, and you get a front-row seat to the magic everyone else is too busy to see.