There once was a man named John the Magnificent. At least, that’s that he called himself. He lived near our home in Ireland a long time ago. I only know about him because of the effort he put in to proving his chosen name—because his manor house really is magnificent, and is still surrounded by gorgeous gardens that are now open to the public (I’m not sure John would approve of this, but he hasn’t said anything). In John’s day, a garden was a great way to display your wealth. His arboretum includes exotic specimens from around the world, and his greenhouses were so well designed and equipped that he was able to serve his guests home-grown pineapples—in Ireland!

Maybe that doesn’t actually sound so amazing. There are plenty of pineapples in Ireland today. Just pop over to the shop and you’ll probably find one ripe and ready for you any day of the year. If you serve one to your guests this weekend, they probably won’t be overawed. What happened? Did the pineapple change in flavour? Is the work that went in to growing, harvesting, and globally distributing fresh pineapples to your table all year round any less impressive than the work of John’s gardeners? Not really. So why aren’t we impressed? I think it’s because pineapples have become cheap. Accessible. Common. John the Magnificent displayed his wealth with pineapples because they were rare and exotic. His guests had never tasted them before. Now we put them on takeaway pizza. We’ve moved on. We don’t value pineapples anymore, because pineapples are ordinary. We’re impressed by other things—things that are scarce and expensive and hard to come by. If John the Magnificent was alive today, I guarantee you he wouldn’t waste his time on pineapples. He’d probably get a Ferrari.

The truth is that John’s pineapples really were magnificent, and our pineapples are, too. Just think of how they grow from the ground, their patterns and design, their flavour—all from seeds and soil and sunlight. Pineapples really are a wonder. We just don’t notice them anymore because they’ve become ordinary and everything ordinary is easy to overlook. Like life. And people and friendship and love and sunsets and music. The common gifts that are given to all humanity are the greatest gifts of all—we just forget to notice them very often because we’re too busy looking for the rare, exclusive things that are hard to get our hands on.

Never mind that. I’ll take the pineapples, please.