The Connoisseurs: Upcoming Book Project

Oftentimes we glance at a stranger and assume who or what they may be. Looks are often deceiving, and some of our assumptions are far from who that person is.

We are all in this world floating around in a fishbowl, trying our best to avoid pitfalls, strangers, and anything we perceive as foreign. But why is that? Why do we only welcome the familiar and avoid coming into contact with more strangers?

The world has become more connected, but the more ways we have of communicating with each other, the less social we have become in our real lives (updating our Facebook page, Instagramming a picture of your meal, staring for endless hours on Reddit while bored).

There is a big, wide world out there, and there are amazing people in it with stories you couldn’t even find in a Hollywood blockbuster. No matter how scared the media makes the world seem, this planet is still full of wonderment, innovation, and untold stories by those we may have already judged.

We discover that all human beings are just like us, so we are able to relate to them more easily. That generates a spirit of friendship in which there is less need to hide what we feel or what we are doing.
– Dalai Lama XIV

Everyone Has a Story

I first introduced Chelsea Batten a few weeks ago when I posted a blog about a fun quiz she made for travelers. She too is a road warrior living life in the present and taking each day one at a time. She came to a realization on the road when she started relying on people for information when she reached new destinations. By talking to them, she found out that they had amazing stories, or knew someone that had a great one to tell.

She developed a project she’s named “The Connoisseurs,” a website and future book we are collaborating on together about her encounters with ordinary people who have extraordinary stories.

“The Connoisseurs was founded on the idea that everyone, everywhere, is a connoisseur of something. It might be on purpose, or it might be by accident. Believing this, we aspire to be connoisseurs of people. We are confident that everyone has an extraordinary story to tell, whether it’s their own, was handed down to them, or was ‘borrowed’ from someone they know.

“These stories are too often lost in the quotidian haze of familiarity. Our hope is to rescue them. We do this by following the stories to their source—visiting the place where your friends and family live, looking for clues in the way they go about their lives,” Chelsea says.

I felt if I wanted to be a writer, it might actually be helpful to know something.
– T. Coraghessan Boyle, Apologia

Powerful Images, Poetic Prose

Very soon we will be releasing this Ebook which explores Americans in their habitat, telling their stories that they thought weren’t worth telling.

In Chelsea’s own words, this is The Connoisseurs:

“The Connoisseurs was founded on the idea that everyone, everywhere, is a connoisseur of something. It might be on purpose, or it might be by accident.

“Believing this, we aspire to be connoisseurs of people. We are confident that everyone has an extraordinary story to tell, whether it’s their own, was handed down to them, or was “borrowed” from someone they know.

These stories are too often lost in the quotidian haze of familiarity. Our hope is to rescue them. We do this by following the stories to their source—visiting the place where your friends and family live, looking for clues in the way they go about their lives,” she says.

To learn more about The Connoisseurs, visit www.theconnoisseurs.us, or Chelsea’s personal site, www.chelseabatten.com.