\n<\/p>\n
Editor\u2019s Note:<\/em><\/strong> Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers\u2019 questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at <\/em>[email\u00a0protected]<\/span><\/em>.<\/em><\/p>\n Don\u2019t want to miss a single column? <\/em>Sign up<\/em> to get \u201cDear James\u201d in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n Dear James,<\/strong><\/p>\n A few years ago (partly inspired by you), I started composing odes to my favorite drinks and dishes in Colorado. After more than a dozen years working on another project, in which I wrote long-form, navel-gazing essays about being a single father, this seemed like a fun and sustainable way to keep my writing chops in fighting trim while sharing my love for Denver\u2019s gems. My goal was to publish one short, impactful, overwrought piece a week.<\/p>\n Although I started strong, I eventually dipped to one a month, and then to\u2014at this point?\u2014only when I think about it. I could blame the vagaries of daily life and a sense that my columns are getting repetitive. But the truth is, I just don\u2019t feel the fire inside like I used to. I was sad when your odes went away, but now I\u2019m wondering if you butted up against something similar: How do we keep rocking rapturous writing when the well starts to run dry?<\/p>\n Dear Reader,<\/strong><\/p>\n Very important question.<\/p>\n When I was gathering my odes into a book\u2014or rather, piling up my effusions in prose and verse and trying to work out which ones were odes and which weren\u2019t\u2014my friend Carlo gave me a magical concept. He called it \u201cthe odeness.\u201d It\u2019s the essential quality, quiddity, floating-in-the-luminous-void uniqueness of whatever you\u2019re trying to write about. It\u2019s what your ode is attempting to first identify and then celebrate. It\u2019s the odeness of your ode.<\/p>\n And I became quite religious about the odeness. I sought it (and found it) everywhere. What is the odeness of a hair dryer, a brake pedal, a ray of winter light, a harsh word in the street? Soon I came to see that the odeness is also an inner state or process, a refinement or tuning up of the writer\u2019s perceptual equipment, a condition of ode-preparedness that seems geared mysteriously toward joy.<\/p>\n And then my book came out, and I lost the odeness completely. \u201cYou\u2019re done being happy?\u201d my publisher\u2019s PR chief asked, after I explained to her that I couldn\u2019t possibly do another interview about getting under the skin of reality, the unrevealed glories of the everyday, et cetera, et cetera. Yes, indeed, I was done being happy. I was done being a half-assed evangelist for the odeness. I reread the introduction to my book, which is an enthusiastic primer in odeness theory. I was bemused. Who was<\/em> this guy? Was he high?<\/p>\n That was a year ago. And today I\u2019m here to tell you that the odeness\u2014gradually, warily, with altered language\u2014comes back. Or one\u2019s ability to be in touch with it comes back. Which is good news, because there\u2019s no question that the general imaginative environment has degraded significantly. Physical reality still works in America, as far as I can tell, but mental reality? Holy moly, we\u2019re in trouble.<\/p>\n I think it\u2019s a question of broadening your range. You ran out of juice exalting Denver\u2019s drinks and dishes, so maybe go a little more abstract: odes to moods, sensations, ideas\u2014weirder, less-immediately-graspable stuff.<\/p>\n Take this story, for example, which I\u2019ve been thinking about lately. It was told to me by my brother. He was at a Red Hot Chili Peppers show in a club in London in the late \u201980s, and Flea, the Chili Peppers\u2019 genius bassist, was mucking about between songs: making his glutinous, high-speed, punk-funk bass noises; effortlessly doing his runs, pops, twangs, squiggles, doodles, Flea formulae; pluming with pure, incidental invention as he paced the stage in his customary state of near nudity. Flea! \u201cFucking<\/em> hell,\u201d spluttered a man standing behind my brother\u2014a man who was clearly a bass player himself, and who now, watching Flea, was caught between revelation and a kind of monstrous affront. \u201cRight\u2014that\u2019s it. From now on, five hours of practice a day. Five hours! Starting tomorrow! Fuck!\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s the story. That\u2019s the, uh, experiential nexus. Now, there\u2019s an ode in there for sure\u2014but what is it? What\u2019s the odeness<\/em> here? Is it an ode to excellence, to artistic transmission, to artistic jealousy, to the bass, to Flea himself? Is it a poem? I don\u2019t know. I haven\u2019t worked it out yet. But the odeness beckons.<\/p>\n Odes don\u2019t need to be rapturous; that\u2019s the other thing. They don\u2019t need to be jolly or even hopeful. They just need to be odes.<\/p>\n Slowly improving,<\/p>\n James<\/p>\n By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let <\/em>The Atlantic use it in part or in full, and we may edit it for length and\/or clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Editor\u2019s Note: Is anything ailing, torturing, or nagging at you? Are you beset by existential worries? Every Tuesday, James Parker tackles readers\u2019 questions. Tell him about your lifelong or in-the-moment problems at [email\u00a0protected]. Don\u2019t want to miss a single column? Sign up to get \u201cDear James\u201d in your inbox. Dear James, A few years ago<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[5052,6040,77,817,15113],"class_list":{"0":"post-24941","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-alive","9":"tag-dear","10":"tag-fire","11":"tag-james","12":"tag-writerly"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}