The love of sheep

I'm recovering from reading Sightlines by Kathleen Jamie. Almost too wonderful: interesting, wise, unshowily elegant. As soon as the exhilaration wore off, I began to wonder if there is any point in my writing when this book has already been written. What on earth could anyone have to add?

In our overcrowded world, this fear lurks at the bottom of many minds. It's surely beneath all the sales of motivational and self improvement products. There's always something or someone better out there.

Categorising is an effective way to deal with the huge size and complexity of the modern world. You can't read the back of and dip into every book in a bookshop, let alone on Amazon. But you know you like books by author X or in genre Y. Starting there saves time.  But categorising is not a neutral act, it ripples back upstream: bookshops categorise by genre, and publishers in turn encourage authors to stay filed in genres. News is categorised as 'world', 'health', 'environment', a big story or a merely local one. We categorise each other and we categorise ourselves: are we geeky, social, travellers, parents, booklovers? It's a useful way to navigate our expanded world - we know what size clothes to take to the fitting room.

When I read Sightlines it was natural to compare my writing, because it shares a category: I don't feel daunted by novels in the same way. But she threw me a line in 'Aurora', as she looks back at their ship, surrounded by icebergs:

"Though white, the ship looks dirty ... the way sheep suddenly look dirty when it snows"

That's the point. Categories lead us to focus on the abstract quality, and seduce our love out of the actual content of the life we are living. An appreciation of real sheep, rather of the category fluffy whiteness, is appreciation that will stand firm when it snows. If it is the sheep you love to see, then snow will make that love blossom forth into a love of mottled gray-brown, a love of hanky texture, a love of steamy bleating made visible in cold air.

Abstract thought has proved its worth with many excellent fruits: cars, solar panels, refrigeration and mobile phones, but it is dangerous. Abstracts bring ideals and ideals oppose life, reducing it to mere shadows on the cave wall, while outside we imagine perfection romping in the sunshine of truth. The great gift of being alive is to revel in the details - enjoying them as particulars, not imperfections. A hot chocolate moustache after a day in the cold, a worn cuff on a favourite jacket, evening light sliding under the clouds.

It's not for us to judge whether our contribution is worth making. All we can do is make it, in detail. Particularly.