Emily Pickle, Period 7

In Patrick Madden's essay, The Infinite Suggestiveness of Common Things, he discusses how essayists are not merely telling a story, but are in fact helps the reader to view something in a way they had never thought of before. Madden finds something extraordinary and miraculous in everything he sees around him, "During my first extended encounters with the essay, I was struck (dumbstruck, moonstruck) by those authors who wrote from seemingly insignificant, overlooked, transient things, experiences, and ideas, who were able to find within their everyday, unexceptional lives inspiration for essaying." It is interesting to me that he is able to continually find something intriguing to write about that does not fall into the social norm that most writing occurs in. He says "The essay-writer has no lack of subject-matter. He has the day that is passing over his head; and, if unsatisfied with that, he has the world's six thousand years to depasture his gay or serious humor upon." Most people go through life without truly realizing the amazing things around them. If you were to look at life the same way that Patrick Madden does then you will always be amazed by life and never run out of writing topics.