Everything bad is good for you

Never Done: Randomly met the author I've most relied on to validate my midlife career change

At the food coop.

Packing apricots into little plastic bags.

I knew that my food coop mate is married to an author, and I knew that he had most recently written a book about innovation, which I once tried to find at the local book store but since I didn't have his name, and I was asking one of the less experienced people at the store, we didn't come up with it from just the word "innovation" and my saying that he's a local author who had done many readings in the store -- which now that I know the title (Where Good Ideas Come From: A Natural History of Innovation) I find ridiculous.

I had been looking forward to seeing all my coop shift mates, since we hadn't seen each other since late November (many of us missed our New Year's eve shift) but Alexa, Lucy, and Rose weren't there, and instead there was a room full of subs along with me and Justine. Nice, smart, friendly subs. Subs I enjoyed talking with. One of whom turned out to be Steven Johnson. Which you knew already because I already told you about Where Good Ideas Come From, but put yourself in my shoes. You're hanging out for hours in a chilly room, packing dried fruits, nuts, and candy into little bags, and you're shooting the shit with the other people in the room. If you don't already know each other, then all you know you have in common is that you (probably) live in Brooklyn, and you are members of the Park Slope Food Coop. So you slowly find your way to points of common interest. You move in and out of conversations with the people packaging cheese and olives, and the people packaging tea and spices. You overhear someone talking about "lunch freedom" at public middle schools, and you jump into a conversation about good TV shows. You realize that one of the subs is the husband of a wonderful playwright and TV writer friend, and you start talking with him and another guy. You discover you have a connection to NYU. The other guy went to Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) and then taught in the department. They ask if I'm writing plays. I say I'm more writing screenplays and I mention my new web series. The other guy asks particularly smart questions about this. We find out he's a writer when he talks about questions of creative license in regards to the treatment of a book of his that was optioned.

Hey, this is what it's like down in food processing.

More and more of the room's attention turns to him as he talks about the optioned book, The Ghost Map, which is about the 1854 cholera epidemic in London, and how one physician, John Snow, deduced that cholera is water born and not air born -- and in doing so, changed science, cities, and the modern world. People started to ask him what else he had written. Among other books, he mentioned a book called Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter.

Wait, what? I love that book. No, seriously, I love that book. It came out the year I came out of grad school, with an MFA in dramatic writing, and hopes and goals of being paid to write for the big and small screens. Having left the non profit social justice world for the world of film and television, I was feeling a little vulnerable. Vulnerable that I wouldn't actually get paid work, and vulnerable that if I did, that that I'd end up writing for Who Wants to be a Millionaire? (which I did try to write for, which I would have been thrilled to have done, but which would have made me feel like I was less of a contributor to society than if I was still, for example, working with low-wage, immigrant workers.)

And then I read Steven's book, which proposes that as TV, video games, and film evolve, the level and complexity of their narratives also evolve, giving us, the viewer and the player, more opportunities for cognitive development and narrative engagement than ever before. (I wish my books weren't in storage, or else I'd go to the source and give you some quotes. Or at least filch some blurb language.) But really, you should go read it, and I'll stick to the part that's most important to me: this book made validated my career choice, and also made me more open-minded about video games. I have several young friends who are extremely into video games, and I don't think I would have respected their interest if it weren't for this book.

From a mussar perspective, I think this one falls under the category of Humility: Seek wisdom from everyone, including the guy sitting next to you, packing apricots into little plastic bags, and including fourteen year-old gamers.


Also, I feel like I should tell you in advance what my next post will be about. I am going to try to go an entire day without saying anything negative or pessimistic, which although I probably did it as a very little child, I have probably never done it in, say, the past 45 years.