Albert Camus with his cat, Cigarette in Bougival, France

Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

This reminded me of the RadioLab episode about a nursing home adding a fake bus stop to the lawn. It prevented residents from getting on actual buses and getting lost, but gave them a safe and familiar space/habit to return to when they started to panic.

"Absolutely no one comes to save us but us."

so, let’s see if i can explain this the same way that i learned. read a sentence out loud. you come to a full stop when you hit the period, and you take a normal, breath. but, when you hit a comma, you take a slightly longer pause. and when you hit a dash - you take an even longer pause. 

this is a natural rhythm that we pick up when we’re first taught to read; we do it without even thinking. but when you start to think about it, you realize that it can become a tool.

think of your heartbeat. a period is badump. a comma is badump-dump. and a dash is thump badump. one breath. a longer breath. two breaths.

that means what you read automatically affects the rhythm of your breathing and your heartrate. which means that you can control the amount of physical tension your reader feels… by altering your punction and your sentence structure.

for fast paced scenes, you use short sentences. a lot of hard stops. mostly periods, with just a few comma’s thrown in for the full breath. your reader’s heartrate accelerates. their breathing is slightly and unintentionally, on their end, quicker. you hit the dramatic ending of the scene - and your reader’s body phsyically feels the gasp, the breath of fresh air, of these longer sentences.

now, read that paragraph again ant take note of your natural pauses, and how it subtly affects your breathing. 

the same thing can be said of comma’s and dashes. while they can be used as a breath of fresh air, they can also cause a new line of tension as they lead your reader to hold their breath. during this section, you should use longer sentences; breaking up the harshness of the pauses by using variations of punction. read this paragraph out loud from the start and take note of how long you go between pauses and full breaths. 

and then, comes the biggest trick.

the hard stop.

the paragraph.

because while the periods, commas, and dashes are variations on a short stop, the paragraph is a hard stop. you take a full breath. you pause for a moment, then move to the start of the next paragraph.

which means you can create an entirely new sort of dramatic tension. read the sentences that are in bold. see how you take a naturally longer pause at the end of each paragraph?

see how it makes you feel? 

how it makes you breath different? 

how doing it once, twice, or three times creates a different line of tension? 

this little magic trick can be used to cause a reader’s heartrate to speed up during a fight or chase scene. it can be used to cause their breathing to slow down during moments of dramatic tension, sorrow, or softness. and it can be used to create hard breaks that add a new level of physically felt emphasis to your written work.

I'm going to try it.

About ten days ago, I wrote a series of posts regarding the difficulties Jews and people of other minority faiths encounter in western society when it comes to having our holidays respected and recognized. I got a lot of feedback from Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Jains, etc. echoing my sentiments (some of which was absolutely heartbreaking), and I have additionally seen a variety of other posts on the matter that underline my point. When reading all of the notes and comments relevant to these posts, I noticed a very similar theme reappearing time after time:

“I didn’t take off for X holiday because I’m not that religious, but the scheduling was very inconvenient for my more observant friend or family member.” 

Indeed, I had previously quoted former MLB player Gabe Kapler, who once made the justification to play baseball on Yom Kippur by saying: 

“I am not really a practicing Jew. It would be selfish to be a practicing Jew on only one day.”

It would seem that many people have been led to believe that observing a Jewish or Muslim or Hindu holiday is cheating unless you are sincerely devout. 

Well, I have an important message for those people: 

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO NON-CHRISTIAN SECULAR OBSERVANCES

This is important, so I’m going to say it again: 

YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO NON-CHRISTIAN SECULAR OBSERVANCE

Think of all the times you have been chided by secular Christian friends for not celebrating Christmas.

“It’s not really even a religious holiday anymore,” people will tell you. “It’s just a nice time for families to get together and celebrate.” 

Well, guess what? So is Rosh Hashanah. So is Eid. So is Diwali. 

A secular Jew might not want to go to synagogue on Rosh Hashanah, but that doesn’t mean they don’t want to fly home for Rosh Hashanah dinner to be with their family. 

A non-practicing Muslim may have lost interest in regular religious practices, but that doesn’t mean they don’t still look forward to Eid celebrations.

A lapsed Hindu can still have fond memories of celebrating Diwali as a youth, and want to continue on with their family traditions. 

There is no written rule that says only people from Christian backgrounds can be non-religious and still celebrate their cultural holidays. There is no law that says only Christmas and Easter can be boiled down to family dinners and fun festivities. 

BEING A SECULAR PERSON FROM A MINORITY FAITH DOES NOT INVALIDATE YOUR RIGHT TO YOUR OWN CULTURAL BACKGROUND. 

I feel very strongly that we need to start normalizing non-Christian holiday observances (both secular and religious) throughout the year for people of all backgrounds.