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The Forgotten Art of Being Ordinary
We’re addicted to our devices. Our kids are too. None of us seem to be better for it. We all know this, but what can we do practically to become less isolated, polarized, and disconnected?
This book answers that question with a bold idea: In an age of personal brands and artificial intelligence, perhaps it’s time to relearn the forgotten art of being ordinary.
In his follow-up to Get Weird, writer and media producer, CJ Casciotta, outlines nine practical solutions and illuminates a better way to live in a culture addicted to media technology, a lifeboat for anyone who feels like they’re drowning in a sea of digital noise.
This is a book for those who are tired of feeling like technology owns them, their children, their politics, and their livelihood, a hopeful and realistic game plan for navigating the 21st century mindfully without losing their souls.
The future of our society will depend on the choices we make right now when it comes to our communication methods. It’s a crisis as urgent as climate change, yet far fewer people are talking about it. The Forgotten Art of Being Ordinary will give you the language you’ve been looking for to start changing the conversation.
This book answers that question with a bold idea: In an age of personal brands and artificial intelligence, perhaps it’s time to relearn the forgotten art of being ordinary.
In his follow-up to Get Weird, writer and media producer, CJ Casciotta, outlines nine practical solutions and illuminates a better way to live in a culture addicted to media technology, a lifeboat for anyone who feels like they’re drowning in a sea of digital noise.
This is a book for those who are tired of feeling like technology owns them, their children, their politics, and their livelihood, a hopeful and realistic game plan for navigating the 21st century mindfully without losing their souls.
The future of our society will depend on the choices we make right now when it comes to our communication methods. It’s a crisis as urgent as climate change, yet far fewer people are talking about it. The Forgotten Art of Being Ordinary will give you the language you’ve been looking for to start changing the conversation.
- GenresNonfiction
260 pages, Hardcover
Published September 12, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
October 12, 2024
This book is a call to pull back from the increasingly curated forms of connection we find online, and to be okay with an ordinary life. By ordinary, this author means building an authentic, multi-faceted life where we communicate as human beings and not avatars. He calls for a society where we think less of how we present ourselves to the world or what people think of us, and more about creating real connections.
In that respect, it reminded me of the thought-provoking book “The Courage to Be Disliked” by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi.
In that respect, it reminded me of the thought-provoking book “The Courage to Be Disliked” by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi.
September 12, 2023
What an important contribution to our current cultural moment. As we all try to navigate what’s truly “real” in our disconnected and always “on” environment, CJ Casciotta gives us a hopeful roadmap of what it might mean to return to the essence of our humanity in curiosity and community. The original poems are moving and the practical yet challenging examples are powerful. I truly hope many read this book and are moved to change!
December 22, 2024
It's definitely a book I'll be rereading in the future. I first thought it would be a how-to for reducing time spent on social media, but it's more about how we evolved to such a high level of consumption. The points the author brings up offer avenues into exploring your own triggers and habits for doing so.
June 2, 2026
I annotated this book as I went because there were impactful thoughts that I wanted to remember. Once finished, I only have annotations in the first six chapters of the book, the other five chapters that followed were not as impactful to me. 3.5/5 but rounding to four.
I feel like this book was missing a call to action. There were a few suggestions here and there from the author. Ex- having more accurate labels for podcast episodes…? (Meh). But how can we actually convince others to be more ordinary? Therefore making an impact on society as a whole. Obviously if you picked up this book you are interested in ‘being ordinary’. But making a larger impact seems to be harder given how engrained our phones and social media are in society. Just like how climate change is a large problem but we can’t do much to fix it (authors pov) it seems media and the meta verse is going down that same route. It can make you feel very helpless.
The good stuff:
On being ordinary… “this practice isn’t a lessening of one’s self but a return to it. If it weakens anything, it takes power away from our meta-projections and redistributes it back into the hands that carry the BLESSING of being able to feel dirt and wind and another’s skin.”
Great Depression —> 21st century version is the Great Distraction. “We have every technological benefit at our fingertips and we’re using them primarily to UNCOUPLE ourselves from the native souls we incarnate until the GIFT of our consciousness is made homeless.”
Get off my lawn!!! About technology and smartphones taking over our lives. “We can’t put the genie back in the bottle, but we can help form the future we imagine with our own hands.”
*this was a very impactful pov for me because I often feel very Get Off My Lawn!!! about technology advancements and wanting to go back to times when it was less a part of society. But we just can’t do this. Need to accept this and do what we can.
Denmark has high rates of happiness despite harsh winters. “You won’t find Danes viewing images of tropical shores or rocky deserts via virtual headsets or phones as a way to deal with the harshness of winter. Instead you’ll find them with an almost childlike appreciation for what many of us would quickly overlook as ORDINARY, the generous cover only small things can offer. Rather than detaching from their bodies and the reality surrounding them, they lean further into it.”
“Dream farther than the edge of your finger.”
Hashtags that are ready to go viral which benefit platforms whose business model is commoditizing our data, privacy, beliefs, and reactions. When these hashtags are further divisive and inflammatory to society and don’t capture the full picture.
Republic of Letters: group of intellectuals across Europe and America who would exchange essays with each other about various topics of cultural importance.
The Reverse Law is what happens when a medium becomes so saturated it ends up having the opposite effect of its original intent.
“Encouraging our kids and each other to rediscover these multisensory nuance heavy rituals — to garden, cook, improvise, hike, swim and raise animals.”
“We can risk the fear of missing out to discover the contagious elation of OPTING OUT.”
I think this last quote is a good call to action to sum up, in my opinion, the goal of this book. (Not to be confused with get off my lawn. You can still use your phone and media without having to do it all. Smartphones and the meta verse are not going away any time soon, or ever, but you can do what you can personally to be a conscious and present human being in your daily life without being glued to your phone 24/7.) This was at the end of chapter 6. The rest of the book was just alright to me. But I did gain a lot from the first 6 chapters as you can see.
I feel like this book was missing a call to action. There were a few suggestions here and there from the author. Ex- having more accurate labels for podcast episodes…? (Meh). But how can we actually convince others to be more ordinary? Therefore making an impact on society as a whole. Obviously if you picked up this book you are interested in ‘being ordinary’. But making a larger impact seems to be harder given how engrained our phones and social media are in society. Just like how climate change is a large problem but we can’t do much to fix it (authors pov) it seems media and the meta verse is going down that same route. It can make you feel very helpless.
The good stuff:
On being ordinary… “this practice isn’t a lessening of one’s self but a return to it. If it weakens anything, it takes power away from our meta-projections and redistributes it back into the hands that carry the BLESSING of being able to feel dirt and wind and another’s skin.”
Great Depression —> 21st century version is the Great Distraction. “We have every technological benefit at our fingertips and we’re using them primarily to UNCOUPLE ourselves from the native souls we incarnate until the GIFT of our consciousness is made homeless.”
Get off my lawn!!! About technology and smartphones taking over our lives. “We can’t put the genie back in the bottle, but we can help form the future we imagine with our own hands.”
*this was a very impactful pov for me because I often feel very Get Off My Lawn!!! about technology advancements and wanting to go back to times when it was less a part of society. But we just can’t do this. Need to accept this and do what we can.
Denmark has high rates of happiness despite harsh winters. “You won’t find Danes viewing images of tropical shores or rocky deserts via virtual headsets or phones as a way to deal with the harshness of winter. Instead you’ll find them with an almost childlike appreciation for what many of us would quickly overlook as ORDINARY, the generous cover only small things can offer. Rather than detaching from their bodies and the reality surrounding them, they lean further into it.”
“Dream farther than the edge of your finger.”
Hashtags that are ready to go viral which benefit platforms whose business model is commoditizing our data, privacy, beliefs, and reactions. When these hashtags are further divisive and inflammatory to society and don’t capture the full picture.
Republic of Letters: group of intellectuals across Europe and America who would exchange essays with each other about various topics of cultural importance.
The Reverse Law is what happens when a medium becomes so saturated it ends up having the opposite effect of its original intent.
“Encouraging our kids and each other to rediscover these multisensory nuance heavy rituals — to garden, cook, improvise, hike, swim and raise animals.”
“We can risk the fear of missing out to discover the contagious elation of OPTING OUT.”
I think this last quote is a good call to action to sum up, in my opinion, the goal of this book. (Not to be confused with get off my lawn. You can still use your phone and media without having to do it all. Smartphones and the meta verse are not going away any time soon, or ever, but you can do what you can personally to be a conscious and present human being in your daily life without being glued to your phone 24/7.) This was at the end of chapter 6. The rest of the book was just alright to me. But I did gain a lot from the first 6 chapters as you can see.
April 12, 2024
I feel inspired to write a review because the author pointed out that many people give star ratings without writing anything. This is just the way the Kindle / Goodreads integration works, and typing on a Kindle would be very challenging, but I digress. I liked this book. It inspired me to limit my social media usage and engage with friends directly more. I think it took a nuanced view of technology. However I think the tone was sometimes smug. It also sometimes portrayed certain things in black-and-white, which is what the author is claiming to avoid. For instance, JoJo Siwa was a big example in it. He doesn’t mention her queerness and how inspiring it is. Also he says there should be more poets and prophets. I see what he’s saying, but I think this is idealizing the poet, who can be as much a victim of “kayfabe” as anyone else. Ironically, I think that this book would be well-suited as a digital garden/website of some sort, where the author has liberty to fix some of this.
Edit: this was also randomly religious which made me feel conflicted
Edit: this was also randomly religious which made me feel conflicted
September 12, 2026
4.5 ⭐️
after just a few chapters, this book got me to do a little social media detox (with some exceptions) but more importantly - be mindful of what and how much i consume.
i’ve felt so out of touch lately and this was just the kind of thing i needed to bring me back to the tangible world while also not feeling terrible about myself.
his writing style was interesting and although i didn’t understand some of his references, i appreciated that casciotta isn’t preachy.
he doesn’t yell at us to “touch grass” but rather gives us practical and hopeful solutions on how we could live in the digital age without losing ourselves.
after just a few chapters, this book got me to do a little social media detox (with some exceptions) but more importantly - be mindful of what and how much i consume.
i’ve felt so out of touch lately and this was just the kind of thing i needed to bring me back to the tangible world while also not feeling terrible about myself.
his writing style was interesting and although i didn’t understand some of his references, i appreciated that casciotta isn’t preachy.
he doesn’t yell at us to “touch grass” but rather gives us practical and hopeful solutions on how we could live in the digital age without losing ourselves.
January 26, 2026
A nice exposure of all the longstanding flaws with our media landscape (metaverse) ... exacerbated in the last 20 years via digital development & access. Branding is empty & not real. So much content is fake, meaningless, and empty.
Get real; be ordinary.
Author seems to live in my neighborhood. Im going to frequent the donut shop and maybe we'll meet.
Get real; be ordinary.
Author seems to live in my neighborhood. Im going to frequent the donut shop and maybe we'll meet.
November 16, 2023
Amazing. I read Digital Minimalism prior to this and the two compliment each other nicely. Definitely put words to a lot of reservations I have around the advancements of technology intertwined into our daily lives without us stopping to ask what the cons are. Highly recommend.
January 3, 2024
I’m not sure I understood everything in The Forgotten Art of Being Ordinary by CJ Casciotta–pretty sure some ideas went over my head–but I am glad I picked this up. It was fascinating and gave me a lot to think about. I loved the idea of treating what we create online like a digital garden. A short, thoughtful listen–great to think about as we begin the New Year, especially as our family is working on our relationship with technology and media consumption. Glad I picked this one up.
September 19, 2023
Always wise, with wry humor, and constantly challenging our dopamine addiction, CJ has put to paper an important read for our digitally distracted times.
November 13, 2023
Second book this year that caught my attention with its title but turned out to include quite a lot of religious quotes/ideas. Didn’t expect that.
November 30, 2023
CJ has, once again, put his thoughtful work and words out in the world, provoking a necessary and relevant conversation!
October 30, 2025
Thank you for the reminders to keep practicing real time being.
March 10, 2024
i did not realize what this was about when i picked it up and it really wasn't for me. it's well written and he makes some good points with good stories, but i don't have strong feelings about the "great distraction" of social media and i am exactly the person who feels a huge relief in using a simple emoji to summarize and convey my reactions.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews