Details Matter | Midcentury Modern Mobiles from Mark Leary

Mobile: Level Change II

On Details

“But I can’t make a difference,” said gray mouse. “I’m far too small.” 

“But your heart is big,” replied owl, “And that’s all that matters.”

Thoughts while making
His name was Yander. I met him on a desert road. The day was hot. I was tired. And my truck had a flat.

I’d spent the previous 5 days in search of shadows and meaning in the Anza Borrego badlands. An ill-advised trip. I’d left Long Beach packed with 2 cans of tuna fish, a handful of beef jerky, a few oranges, and a ziplock bag of Vitamin C. I had a couple gallons of slightly milk-ish water in plastic jugs, too. Oh and a journal, a dog-eared copy of The Upanishads, and a sleeping bag that smelled of barf from an unfortunate high Sierra’s backpacking trip with my dad, older brother, and a hallucinogenic marmot.  

I’d gone to the desert looking for something. Yet I’d paid little attention to the details that seemingly mattered: Water. Food. Shelter. Good sense. Not to mention a working jack or a fully-inflated spare tire.

So how is it that this ended up being one of the best little adventures of my life? I smoked a cigarillo and talked to a fly about Plato one afternoon. Watched a hill come alive with mica reflected under the rising full moon. Meditated and felt the earth thump beneath me (likely just the effects of heat exhaustion + dehydration). I emerged sunburnt, chapped, slightly frazzled—and so happy. In the end, it was these details, not the pragmatic ones, that mattered, endured.

And that’s just it, isn’t it? It’s all details, everything. And there aren’t right or wrong ones, just those we choose to focus our attention upon and those we don’t. That focus and those synergies paint the picture, write the story, make the meaning – as much about what we include as exclude.

So, I’m curious what detail you saw today – focused upon – and how it impacted you? For me, it was the loops + lines that connect the colorful bits of my mobiles, they often take a backseat but today I felt appreciation for them, as part and whole. You?