In Praise of the Trivial and Mundane

I noticed today, via the wonderful notebookism, a study about the benefits of journaling and mindfulness. The study was conducted by Matthew D. Lieberman at UCLA’s Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center. Long story short, journaling, or labeling your feelings, appears to decrease activity in a section of the brain that helps protect the body in times of danger. In other words, the simple act of labeling your emotions can help reduce your attachment to them, which in turn can help you let go of them. Read the article for a more scientific review of the conclusions.

After finishing the article my mind drifted to weblogs, and services like Twitter, Jaiku, and Moodmill. This study would seem to suggest maintaining a personal weblog could be beneficial for your mental health. That is, if you choose to share your feelings. Twitter-like services would also be conductive to creating a sense of mindfulness, given the studies findings.

I then began to think of critiques I’ve noticed about Twitter. Probably because those that think the service sucks would feast on the above notion. These critiques usually echo the same points. What’s the point? I don’t get it? It’s pointless. It’s boring. It’s a waste of time. The sentiment is summed up in this MSNBC article like so,

Why do we think we’re so important that we believe other people want to know about what we’re having for lunch, how bored we are at work or the state of inebriation we happen to be at this very moment in time? How did society get to the point that we are constantly improving technology so that this non-news can reach others even faster than a cell phone, a text message, a blog, our Facebook profiles?

First of all, and I can’t speak for everyone, I’ve never claimed I’m “so important.” Sharing with others, whatever the ends and means, does not imply a grandiose ego. There’s nothing grandiose, or important about me “sitting at the table drinking Orangina.” But this is the point of the whole adventure. We’re all boring. We’re all pointless. And we’re all wasting our time.

I’ve always detected a whiff of snobbery in the “what’s the point,” “why are you so important” arguments. While I’ll be the first to admit there’s a poisonous narcissism that can run through web-based social networks; I might add the same as anywhere else off-line, not everything needs to be important. Not everything needs to be grand. We need not filter what we share through an importance meter. I’d argue the one who judges another for not being important is more filled with ego than the one sharing the pointless.

I also think people sometimes forget there’s joy and simple beauty in the mundane and boring. Go watch the end of American Beauty and you’ll see how a rather pointless and trivial bag blowing in the wind can drip with transcendent meaning. This is not to say drinking Orangina is cause for celebration, but sharing the little, pointless moments of our lives can serve to strengthen us as individuals and communities. In this way Twitter-like services, weblogs, and other social networks are forming a matrix of sharing.

Sure, much of it is trivial. So what? I say give me more sharing. You know sharing, that quaint kindergarden lesson of yore. It’s a powerful tool, and one we need to partake in more because sharing is actually a subtle form of creation. It goes like this; You are what you share, or you are what you cause another to be.

Sharing helps us move beyond conceptualization and into knowing. You cannot cause another to be happy if you are not happy. You cannot share joy with another if you do not have joy. Sharing creates being. You want to be happy. Cause another to be happy. You want more joy. Cause another to be joyful. What you give you in turn create for yourself.

What weblogs and services like Twitter do is create a matrix of sharing. Now sure there’s a lot of static, and some of it is boring, but such is Life. We’re sharing the stuff of Life. The planet needs more of this not less. We’re in desperate need of community and these tools are one way to help unite us in a community of sharers. People who have the courage to be boring. People who have the courage to be pointless. People who have the courage to share themselves, no mater how insignificant or trivial.

Indeed I’d argue we’re teaching ourselves how to share. How to be members of a sharing community. It isn’t always pretty and it isn’t always glamourous and it isn’t always important, but again, so what? It doesn’t need to be. It just needs-to-Be.

So share and share some more, and then share again. Make it Pointless. Make it Boring. Make it Joyful. Make it Authentic. And make it yours. This is the stuff of Life. This is the stuff of communion. The truth is I get more connection out of five pointless Twitter posts than I do out of one hour of network news.

So I’d ask who’s being narcissistic and ego driven when you declare another’s choice of sharing not important? Who decides what is worthy of dissemination? And who says communion cannot be had through the sharing of the mundane. Go ask the Buddhist monks, on their hands and knees, engaged in the rather boring task of scrubbing a stone floor if the mundane is not important. If the trivial is not cause for celebration or ripe with potential transcendence.

I say practice conscious sharing. Practice it with Twitter. Practice it on your weblog. Practice with your family. Practice it everywhere and at every moment and never let anyone tell you it’s not important.

June 25 2007 09:44:57 PM EDT