Delight Radar

On living in the beauty of the mundane

Dear reader,

When I read Ross Gay’s “The Book of Delights” back in 2022, I fell in love with the idea of closely observing life as a simple, accessible way of practicing gratitude. In his collection of essays, Gay completes a year-long challenge in which he documents a daily instance of delight, many of which are mundane and ordinary.  

“It didn’t take me long to learn that the discipline or practice of writing these essays occasioned a kind of delight radar. Or maybe it was more like the development of a delight muscle. Something that implies that the more you study delight, the more delight there is to study” (Gay 2019).

A delight could be anything, that is why it is delightful. Often hiding in plain sight, it is hard to predict what you might consider a delight and too what delights you may encounter. I’ve found that the best delights are often novel, ordinary and subtle. Something that is maybe even only visible through your personal lens, something you have to make a conscious effort to notice.

It’s the glimmers of every day, you know? Delight is the warmth of the sun against your back after a cold winter. It’s an older couple walking hand-in-hand across the street. It’s seeing a store owner unlock the door and there is already a customer waiting outside. It’s when the ocean is warm enough to dive under repeatedly. It’s a seemingly random, yet strangely significant coincidence. It’s a lucky number. Or a favorite T-shirt. It’s overhearing a silly conversation. Or an interaction with a stranger. Things that make you chuckle, smile, think. 

I don’t know. It’s a childlike joy, really. It’s like how when we were young we’d do things like lay in the grass and look up at the sky to find shapes in the clouds. We didn’t realize it then, but looking back, we did those things simply because they delighted us.

As adults, it’s easy to overlook such simple pleasures. Or maybe you do see them, but don’t take the extra moment to really notice, to say to yourself gosh, how delightful! There is no reward, no real reason to do it like we do other things like brush our teeth or go to work. But there is an unapologetic goodness about it. It’s a declaration that regardless of simplicity, appreciation is warranted. It is to say I will let my eyes land on wonder just for the sake of sheer enjoyment. I will take one step further into the fullness of the world around me. 

Now you might be thinking this is a frivolous practice. I mean, the world is heavy right now. Mental health stats are alarming. It’s an election year. Palestinian children are being burned alive. Our planet itself is burning. Not to mention our personal inconveniences, like shitty jobs, high rents, failed relationships, the list goes on.

Relishing in delight doesn’t mean turning a blind eye to these horrors and injustices; it means acknowledging that pain and joy can coexist. We can and should make space for the joy that is already right in front of us, for this is often all we can control.

We, rightfully so, become easily wrapped up in this, that or the other thing—and delight, therefore, is not instinctive to us. But I’ll tell you, delight has buoyed me through many challenging times. Times that, on the surface, felt delightless. I’d intake so much self-help advice online and it often made feel worse, fueling comparisons and giving me another thing I had to do.

Delight isn’t about doing. With delight, you can be tired, busy, distracted. It requires, essentially, nothing. It is right there available for you, in the light and the shadows. Similar to a traditional gratitude practice–being thankful for things like food, family, health–but different in that delights don’t run the risk of becoming trite. 

We can notice delight and we can create it too. It starts with taking your coffee in your favorite mug and getting the froth just right. Then maybe you open the window, and perhaps you notice the sound of birds chirping nearby. Maybe you spin a vinyl on the record player you never use, or light a candle with one of the matchboxes you’ve been collecting. Later, you might take your time cutting the vegetables and arrange them neatly in the bowl. Even though you’re just going to eat it, it’s nice to do it anyway. It’s about the decision to drop into the habit of noticing small joys around us. 

Though the practice is in a sense individual, as Gay puts it, “I also learned that my delight grows—much like love and joy—when I share it.”

Since becoming a delight devotee, my camera roll has reflected my pursuit of beauty and wonder. I started to document the little things around me as a way of cherishing them. I started posting them on TikTok in search of a community to share my findings with. As I kept documenting and sharing, I found myself seeking more delight in everyday. To capture and create content, yes, but also for the sheer joy it brought me to crystallize the moment, to make a memory of it. My most ordinary of days could be made into quick art just by savoring the delights. By sharing them, I feel like I’m contributing to the collective delight radar. 

I think documenting is an honest part of delighting but that certainly doesn’t have to be through social media. You can share a delight with a friend, a journal, or a pet, even. Or no one of course! There is something to letting a delight just be a delight in your mind. I do this all day long.

What I’m trying to say is it helps to notice the good. The small but wonderful good. June is a nice time to start, when everything is so lush and alive and waiting to be noticed. When the tree branches create an arch over the streets and in the evening the sun slips through it. When the fruit is sweet again and you eat a peach and let the juice spill down your arm. You bite as close as you can to the pit as possible because you want to savor it all. You want to savor the delight. You want to savor being alive.  

Gosh, how delightful!

Sincerely,

Salena