在之前的博客中我写过几篇关于写作素材方面的文章，从找到写作的灵感到避免人云亦云。很多学生尽管写作能力并不弱，但还是苦于没有素材可写，常见的抱怨就是自己生活单调没有故事。那这次我就着重讲讲从平凡中发掘独特的视角。 每天我们都重复着很多日常琐事, 好像都如此平凡无奇。但只要多想一想，换一个角度，也许就会发现一些被忽略的意义。
美国作家Nicholson Baker尤其擅长聚焦生活中的细微之处，以精准独特的方式呈现出来。比如他的小说The Mezzanine中有一段关于系鞋带的感想：
Shoes are the first adult machines we are given to master. Being taught to tie them was not like watching some adult fill the dishwasher and then being asked in a kind voice if you would like to clamp the dishwasher door shut and advance the selector knob (with its uncomfortable grinding sound) to Wash. That was artificial, whereas you knew that adults wanted you to learn how to tie your shoes; it was no fun for them to kneel. I made several attempts to learn the skill, but it was not until my mother placed a lamp on the floor so that I could clearly see the dark laces of a pair of new dress shoes that I really mastered it; she explained again how to form the introductory platform knot, which began high in the air as a frail, heart-shaped loop, and shrunk as you pulled the plastic lace-tips down to a short twisted kernel three-eighths of an inch long, and she showed me how to progress from that base to the main cotyledonary string figure, which was, as it turned out, not a true knot but an illusion, a trick that you performed on the lace string by bending segments of it back on themselves and tightening other temporary bends around them: it looked like a knot and functioned like a knot, but the whole thing was really an amazing independent pyramid scheme, which much later I connected with a couplet of Pope’s:
Man, like the gen’rous vine, supported lives;
The strength he gains is from th’embrace he gives.
系鞋带本事一件再普通不过的事了，作者就此联想到那些貌似不经意的成长，鞋带的交错成结，又隐喻人们在生活中互相支持和连接。
又比如在New York Times 100-word narrative contest 的一篇2024年获奖文章“First Snow of the Year,” 作者通过一个雪球，写出了一瞬间的心理活动，一段小对话带来的欣喜。还有2022年的获奖文章“The Sidewalk”，里面关于三人同行时在窄路上的小尴尬不少读者都有过切身感受吧。
类似的还有那篇以Papa Johns Pizza 为主线的essay ( Response to a short essay prompt about something one enjoys doing)。
有人或许不解，这么平凡的事物能打动读者？其实做到这点很难。用我们习以为常的事物为内容是一把双刃剑。一方面，平凡通常意味着太熟悉了就没感觉了，就事论事的写就成了common sense了。但另一方面，读者熟悉的东西更容易引起共鸣，为其赋予新的理解会让人耳目一新，又心领神会。
写好这类文章要我们细心观察，捕捉自己心动的一刻，就此展开引申，联想，想象。也就是说洞察力加思考，找到独特的视角。当然写的时候也需要一番功夫，不能只是平铺直叙，要找好切入点，利用相应的描写，人物刻画，字词的反复揣摩，给文章以灵气或新鲜感。
写作的素材是从日常逐渐收集的，当你特地为了写而搜罗素材时，往往会不知从何下手。人们常说”be mindful,” 留意身边发生的点点滴滴, 你会发现平凡背后深奥的意义。
我想用我喜欢的一位诗人Mary Oliver 的小诗“Wild Geese”来结尾。真实的生活并不总是壮丽的，珍惜平凡中那份小小的感动。
Wild Geese
Mary Oliver
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.