Why Can't Everyone Be Boring Except Me?

So I was reading the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book the other day (Did you know there was a Scratch Renaissance in the mid-Sixties?) and learning about all these different things people can apparently cook. This is not some kind of specialist, hoity-toity Chef's Reference Manual - it's just a Cook Book, intended as standard equipment in every American kitchen. People really do cook, and cooked, things like Chicken Kiev and Beef Borguignon and Cherries Jubilee.

I can't cook any of that stuff. I have a tough time with hot dogs on the grill.

But it was helpful, because it allowed me to put my finger on a deep-seated fear of mine: incredibly interesting complexities of life that I know nothing about.

I suddenly realized that there's this whole subculture of Americana, right under our noses, right in the kitchens of our home and those of our neighbors, which had never really occurred to me. People cooking, creating new recipes, trying stuff out, responding to *cyclical trends*, for the love of cornstarch! -all without any assistance or involvement on my part.

And an image flashed into my mind: Vast fields of filing cabinets, each one filled to capacity with wonderful writing. Long-forgotten, shoddily archived stories and essays, each one thoughtful, and skillful, and moldering away in this sprawling repository of brilliance.

You'd think I'd like to find something like that. But I wouldn't. And if you understand why not, then I don't need to say any more.

Besides, I'm sure somebody expressed this idea already.
And far, far better.