Daily, there’s this thing that lives with you, whether you invited it in or not. It’s called tedium, and sometimes it goes by a nickname, like “Ted” or “lease renewal,” or “blind dating.” But whatever you call it, it’s like a cloud, obfuscating all else, making things inexorably hazier and robbing you of your Precious, whether it is something as complicated as happiness or as simple a pleasure as clarity.

And believe me, this summer, though full of wonderful things, was also the summer of Ted. Everything good that emerged from the last three months has had its own process of painful, sleep-depriving birth–none of it coming with a lovely and dreamlike injection of painkillers and muscle relaxers. It’s not like I labored and no one believes me. People know. People acknowledge. I hold magazines and newsletters in my hands, and have expanded my Rolodex and Facebook friends list. But I think–and this is a hard thing to admit–that the minimal sleep and intense creativity might be having an adverse effect, and my recovery time is not what it once was.

Which is why moments of Tedlessness, in which the fog doesn’t so much lift dramatically as dissipate molecularly, in small, barely perceptible minutes, are so precious. These times provide reinvigoration, and spiritual renewal, or other new agey sounding patchouliness. It’s why I’m glad that I’ve come to realize that the people and endeavors that inspire me, and who are present in my life aren’t just there randomly–they and I both are part of a larger story.

Gone are the days of “we all met in college and have been friends ever since.” Gone are the days of “we’ve been friends ever since we met at camp when we were twelve.” Or, at least, those days are gone to me. These days, when I look at a person, I remember our specific story. I sift through perceived and actual memories of our meeting, our first encounter, which, more often than not, was through the internet, or through something that I’d written. A reader put us in touch, hoping it would provide more work. (It did, repeatedly, along with a lasting friendship and partnership.) A colleague put us in touch, thinking we’d get along. (We did, incredibly well.) An Israel program showed us the relativity of age and the importance of finding creative people to partner with. (And we did, intensely and with great success.) In one case, although it certainly gives me no pleasure or ad revenue to admit it, I might have even met one of the members of my creative posse through JDate.

I enjoy these larger stories because it makes me feel like life is less random, like there’s definitely a karma-like aspect to putting out creativity and having it boomerang back at you in an incredibly inspiring and non-violent fashion. It creates within a cynical heart the possibility of redemption, and provides a chamber for the echoes of optimism that escape, pinging about a cavernous mind, and bouncing off its walls. It makes me believe, even if foolishly and naively, that we’re more in control of what happens in our lives than we might ever estimate on a given day.

Which is why on those most normal of everyday days, it’s important to see a larger picture, and enjoy the larger story. Especially if the day in question happens to be a day of Ted.