"I had an average life"
Thierry MoncorgerShare
It's a feeling, a classic objection. The feeling that our life has not been exciting, that it has been, all in all, classic, "lambda". Let's look at the etymology of this word. The letter lambda is the 11th letter of the Greek alphabet. The slang of the grandes écoles, which then spread to everyday French, made it a pejorative term, to designate the ordinary, as opposed to the extraordinary of the first letters. First, it is a question of contesting this elitist philosophy which would have it that there are Alphas (often used in a masculinist and patriarchal vision of society), Betas, and... Lambdas.
Rather than this archaic hierarchy, let's return to the fundamentals of the Republic: we are all equal. In a democracy, all voices, in the sense of votes, count equally. In biography, it's the same thing: all voices, in the sense of storytelling, must be treated with the same respect. There are not on one side, "great men" (and great women), politicians, athletes, entrepreneurs, artists, journalists... whose existence should be told, narrated, romanticized, flattered to infinity, in eternal light, and on the other, ordinary people, normal life, which would be unworthy of storytelling and should remain in the shadows, in silence.
We are all the heroes and heroines of our loved ones, the characters in the novels of our family's life, of our friends. There is heroism (in the sense of "act of exceptional courage", "greatness of soul") in our daily actions and decisions: reconciling after an argument, going to work every morning, fighting against illness, loving our neighbor, moving to an unknown place, going through a breakup, overcoming our complexes, building a house or a family, giving life. In the eyes of children, parents or grandparents are sometimes the real heroes of the real world.
What makes a good novel, a good story? Engaging characters, adventures, suspense, revelations, feelings, identification... Every life is full of them. For the friend or niece who reads the biography of their loved one, we easily find this cocktail. The character is easily endearing, since we spend time with him on a daily basis! He told us about the adventures once at a dinner, we rediscover them with flavor! Suspense and revelations are the art of slipping an anecdote into the story that no one knows! Feelings and identification are easy, the reader discovers the extraordinary experience of being the character in a book read, smiles and tears in the eye guaranteed! Isn't the pleasure greater than reading yet another story about dragons, mysterious crimes or romance?
And at worst, if your life was really too "ordinary", then add a bit of fantasy: slip a dragon or a romance into your book (no crime please, Elefantia does not endorse it!)!
So go ahead, Elefantia writes for you!
Rather than this archaic hierarchy, let's return to the fundamentals of the Republic: we are all equal. In a democracy, all voices, in the sense of votes, count equally. In biography, it's the same thing: all voices, in the sense of storytelling, must be treated with the same respect. There are not on one side, "great men" (and great women), politicians, athletes, entrepreneurs, artists, journalists... whose existence should be told, narrated, romanticized, flattered to infinity, in eternal light, and on the other, ordinary people, normal life, which would be unworthy of storytelling and should remain in the shadows, in silence.
We are all the heroes and heroines of our loved ones, the characters in the novels of our family's life, of our friends. There is heroism (in the sense of "act of exceptional courage", "greatness of soul") in our daily actions and decisions: reconciling after an argument, going to work every morning, fighting against illness, loving our neighbor, moving to an unknown place, going through a breakup, overcoming our complexes, building a house or a family, giving life. In the eyes of children, parents or grandparents are sometimes the real heroes of the real world.
What makes a good novel, a good story? Engaging characters, adventures, suspense, revelations, feelings, identification... Every life is full of them. For the friend or niece who reads the biography of their loved one, we easily find this cocktail. The character is easily endearing, since we spend time with him on a daily basis! He told us about the adventures once at a dinner, we rediscover them with flavor! Suspense and revelations are the art of slipping an anecdote into the story that no one knows! Feelings and identification are easy, the reader discovers the extraordinary experience of being the character in a book read, smiles and tears in the eye guaranteed! Isn't the pleasure greater than reading yet another story about dragons, mysterious crimes or romance?
And at worst, if your life was really too "ordinary", then add a bit of fantasy: slip a dragon or a romance into your book (no crime please, Elefantia does not endorse it!)!
So go ahead, Elefantia writes for you!
