The Black Swan

 

Decimus Junius Juvenalis (Juvenal) was a snarky Roman poet who lived in the year 100AD. How do I know he was snarky? Because he wrote satire, actually, The Satires, which are a collection of 16 poems. In the most famous, Satire VI, Juvenal rails on against women. He seems to hate them and writes that he would "prefer a prostitute for a wife since virtuous women are often arrogant. A good wife is a rara avis, like a black swan." At that time, black swans were thought not to exist. They were considered outside the realm of possibility, and for Juvenal, so was a good wife.

So, while Juvenal was probably a 'real peach' to hang out with and we are glad he lived 2000 years ago in Rome instead of today in the house next door, the metaphor stuck. Black Swan was adopted as the description of a life-changing, unpredictable event outside the realm of expectation and predictability.

Today, economists talk about Black Swan events often and consider them catastrophic from the perspective of the person viewing the event, but historians do not use the same filter. While events such as the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center are considered Black Swan events, so is the Internet's rise.

The literary world's perception is also different. Black Swan books and articles are viewed as golden treasures. One example of a Black Swan success was J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. When have books published in the young adult genre by an unknown author, gone viral as adult fiction? Never. 

Oh well, now its almost never.

Then the question is, as writers, publishers, booksellers, and humans how can we tap into what is not yet, but soon to be important to the world? We step back, change our perspective, and never say never. If the Black Swan events in our history have taught us something, it's that anything is possible.

When I consider what I might write that could be a Black Swan, I must also try to change my perspective; try something different. In addition to being a writer, I am a shaman, so maybe channeling and automatic writing could serve me well. I think I'll try it. I could even call in the black swan because it turns out, Juvenal was wrong, and they actually do exist. But we already knew that didn't we. Juvenal was wrong about a lot of things.