The Epic Hidden in Domestic Life

Tolstoy’s Quiet Scale

Leo Tolstoy is often remembered for the sheer scale of his work—the battles, the history, the sprawling casts. But the true ’epic’ of Tolstoy is found in the domestic. It is in the way he describes a character’s boots, or the way a specific family routine carries the weight of an entire philosophy.

We often think that to write something ‘important,’ we must write about ‘important’ events. But greatness lives in the small, repeated routines of our lives. The way someone makes their coffee, the way they tie their shoes, the way they look at their hands when they are thinking—these are the moments where the soul is revealed.

Every person you pass on the street is carrying an unseen world of domestic complexity. Today, I watched a stranger wait for a bus and tried to guess one thing about their home life just from their shoes. It is a reminder that there are no small lives, only small observations. Look closer at the mundane. There is an epic hiding there.

The Monroe Minute Guess one thing about someone’s home life from their shoes.

Until the next page,
Sloane S. Monroe

Sloane Shay Monroe

I don’t write to idealize love, but to explore it honestly, with emotional precision and depth.