Ecocentricity Blog: Congratulations John Picard!
Last week, I was in Los Angeles to celebrate with John as he received the Global Green Individual Environmental Leadership Award. It was certainly well-deserved for a man who has been an environmental leader for nearly three decades.
In medias res. This phrase means “into the middle of things” in Latin, and it is a common device in narrative literature and film. Yep, I’m on point in my nerd game this week, combining Latin and literary devices in my open. Boom.
When a story begins in medias res, the “action” has already begun. The author or director immediately advances the plot to a significant moment, with the backstory usually filled in later. This can be done with flashbacks or character dialogue, but regardless of the method, the audience is supposed to have questions from the get-go. The Iliad and The Odyssey are classic examples in literature, and Star Wars: A New Hope is a good example in film. And yes, I just stretched my nerd-double into a triple with that Star Wars reference.
When I tell the Ray Anderson story, I usually begin in medias res. I often say something like, “In 1994, Ray read Paul Hawken’s The Ecology of Commerce, which convinced him of the need for his company to become environmentally sustainable.” Ray called that moment his “spear-in-the-chest” epiphany, so it certainly was a pivotal moment. Truthfully though, that is not the beginning of the story.
