It's What I Do

After translating the latest batch of writing prompts from my cellphone's voice notes into text files on my computer, I was going through some of my older ideas files, and one note that I distinctly remembered—yet was utterly unable to locate, despite diligent and creative searching—kept coming to mind. It went something like this, "Why do I write about the trivia I do, when there's so much more important and meaningful topics to address?"

To be fair to myself—which I actually seldom am (it's one of my many collectible character flaws; I'm working on the complete set)—it's not like I don't tackle bigger issues on occasion. For example, I've talked about the loss of a child and of course I've blathered about religion so many times that I've really lost count (but here's one of my more recent efforts).

But I've also bitched to the point of whining about things as ridiculous as Liz Hurley (no offense, honey, but you are so NOT the center of the universe, despite me giving you a nice long rant on my infrequently-read babbleblog) and recycled commercial segments in the wee hours of the day). One of my more pressing concerns this week was to get to how I felt during a recent, highly-intimidated foray into "Victoria's Secret," during my quest to claim my FREE panty on the very last day that the coupon could be used to do so.

Not exactly hard-hitting stuff, is it.

And much of my blog—like many blogs, I suppose—is dedicated to my own obsessive concerns about ME. I chronicle my failures and my witticisms and my health, and for what? This here is not the stuff of which soap opera novellas nor certainly NOT great literature is made. For the most part, it is a seemingly endless parade of trivia of what—while it does touch others, as do the vast majority of lives—really is a basically insignificant existence, at least compared to the plethora of more meaningful and more significant lives and problems and writings that are out there, mixed in among the other trivia-chronicling sites in the Great Big Cesspool that IS the Internet.

While I'm hard-pressed to point to ANYONE ELSE as not being significant—like I said, I'm pretty good at seeing merit in others, although I tend to degrade my own contributions, even where they're at least surface-similar—I question and requestion my OWN significance here. I'm not well-read. I'm not very interesting. I'm just me, and I go through days and days of feeling Mostly Invisible at both work and home. In darker times—like, say, WINTER—this makes me wonder whether I'm worth having around at all, though certainly not to the point where I'm a danger to myself or others, except through the Toxic Mood chemicals that I'm sure leave a nasty-colored trail behind me.

Sometimes I think I should do more. I should write about the REALLY important stuff, like how the peripheral ripples of the recent, completely unexpected and tragic death of a friend's wife reached out—more like ocean waves—and how important it is to cherish our families, even when they're annoying as hell (no judgment on this lady, mind you, not beyond the "nobody's perfect" type of generalization anyway). I should write about how the suicide of another friend's sister had even greater direct and peripheral effects; how it, too, affects so many more people than the pained, lost soul who thinks he or she is just slipping into their own private oblivion can possibly understand. I should write about how—at the same time I was so angry—I also, finally, had a glimmer of understanding of how GREAT a person's pain can become, that they should mistakenly conclude that the world would just close around behind them and continue on as if they had never been a part of it at all.

I should write about war, or conflict; I should write about peace, or hope. I should write about Things That Matter—BIG things—and I should write to inspire instead of to hear myself talk (see myself think? whatever).

The thing is, I do believe that the little things in life are important. And I do believe that silly things and dumb things shape us just as significant and important things do. We NEED these things, in fact, because there's a not-insubstantial portion of us out there in the world who would go absolutely raving INSANE if all we could or did do was focus on Things That Really Matter. It's great to volunteer for an event like the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life, for example, but the part of your soul that gets sucked out of your lungs in a gasp—in a eye-watering STABBING pain—when you hear, all unexpected, a name that you recognize being read in the list of those who have lost their battles with cancer can't just be glossed over. You have to heal, somehow, so you can try to do something else that's good.

Sometimes, if you're me—and I know you're glad you're not—you have to write about being prevented from using the word "ASS" in a blog title before you can write about how you felt the first time you stayed up all night, walking some 80 circuits around a quarter-mile track, raising just a little bit more money for research into a cure for cancer. It's not because you think it's important, in the grand scheme of things, whether or not you get to say "ASS" or not; it's just that it's hard to type when you're crying, and it's hard to do a topic justice when it's so VERY much bigger and more important than you could ever be.

Kinda makes writing about getting measured at a—oh, how shall I put this—"significantly lower level" than your boobs USED TO perkily stand at Victoria's Secret sound APPEALING, in it's own sick, demented, and highly-comparative way. Really.

Anyway. I was under no illusions when I started blogging ... right about a year ago. This site is named as it is because I knew it wasn't a thing of permanence, I understood it wasn't Really Important, and I fully intended it to be free-ranging in its topical selection. And the tagline that emerged is pretty straightforward, too; blogging IS cheaper than the therapy I could undoubtedly benefit from.

Maybe it's only another illusion to continue to believe that even when they don't seem to, little things DO matter, and whether or not I preserve my little bit o' remaining sanity, there's always more to write about, both big and little. And writing about whatever silly little thing comes to mind? Well, that's just what I do to make room for Deep Thoughts.

I'm pretty sure that's it.