Listing life's little joys

I don’t typically go around quoting Japanese idioms, but I do have one for you this morning: mono no aware. It’s a phrase about our awareness of impermanence — a “wistfulness” at the transience of things, but also a “gentle, deeper sadness about this state being the reality of life.”

This enduring ambiguity of our existence, and how we encounter it, is the seed of so much great art and writing. It’s certainly the beating heart of “Every Brilliant Thing,” a play getting loads of attention on Broadway this spring.

The fictional play, written by Duncan Macmillan with help from Jonny Donahoe, first came to the stage in 2014, and it’s since been performed in dozens of languages in more than 80 countries — a true theatrical sensation. It was even the subject of an HBO documentary in 2016. But it was new to me (and maybe you, too).

The basics: “Every Brilliant Thing” is a one-actor show (currently starring Daniel Radcliffe) about a man who grew up with a suicidal mother. As a boy, the man began to write a list of life’s pleasures — his strategy for giving his mom reasons to live — but over time, as the man contends with his own depression, the list becomes a coping mechanism, his way of moving through the world. By the end of the 70-minute production, the list approaches some 1 million entries.

The twist is this: The play relies on audience participation and collaboration to advance the narrative. Some audience members are called on to yell out particular joys, “#1 — ice cream” or “#24 — spaghetti Bolognese" or “#320 — making up after an argument,” while a select few act out particular characters, with scripted lines and license to improvise.

I’ve read quite a bit about the play, but I haven’t seen it in person. I suspect this is one of those things you have to experience to fully understand. As far as I can tell, though, the show is a wild celebration of small, everyday joys, and, in Radcliffe’s description to The New York Times, “draws a very direct line between happiness and the ability to notice new, wonderful things.”

Load YouTube video

Clearly, these bits of joy, this ode to connection, is something people of the world — or at least theater-going people of the world — want right now. My adventure down the “Every Brilliant Thing” rabbit hole got me thinking about what I’d put on my own list.

For starters: cherry blossom petals so delicate they look like falling snowflakes, seeing a friend in an unexpected place (like the grocery store or the checkout line at TJ Maxx), my reading glasses, walking down the street eating a soft serve ice cream cone with rainbow sprinkles, a nice leather journal, yellow tulips in a vase, sea turtles, a cheap clicker pen I bought at MoMA’s gift shop, butter croissants, fresh pita bread, October baseball, weighted blankets, flameless battery-operated candles that go on (and off) automatically, friendship bracelets, a vodka martini with olives and a twist, singing Tracy Chapman in the car.

I never bought into the idea of a “gratitude journal” — gratitude is so often hijacked by the wellness industrial complex, performative and wrung of  meaning — and at first, making this list felt like that: a sort of desperate, superficial, treacly thankfulness. I felt stumped. Plus, it’s easy enough to remain in a state of generalized “blah.”  But once I got a few things down, I couldn’t stop. And this seems to be the reason for making a list in the first place: seeking out and naming what delights us, creates a new lens on the world, which leads to more delight.

I’m eager to hear what would make it onto your list. Reply to this email — or send a note to opinion@wbur.org with “The List” in the subject line — and send us your favorites. We’ll compile them in a future post. Who knows, maybe one day we can even host a performance of “Every Brilliant Thing” at WBUR’s CitySpace?

Radcliffe told the Times, “I think the extraordinary thing that this show manages to do is it finds the universal in the incredibly specific. There is something beautiful about how actually similar we all are and how we all want, basically, the same things, which is connection, love, and joy.”

I'm certain we’ll find the same when we compile our own list.