Introduction

I was reminded yesterday that I had started a blog. (Oops!) I have also been prompted to consider again my blogging goals. I don’t have anything important to write about today, so I will write about what’s on my mind. As it turns out, what’s on my mind is the value of talking about potentially boring minutia. So I’m killing maybe three birds with one stone here: writing about the purpose of blogging, telling you my minutia, and writing about writing about minutia.

A friend recently remarked, as a sort of disclaimer or qualification before telling a story, that nobody probably cared as much about the minutia of his life as he did. He’s probably right. It is hard to imagine anyone, even his own mother (if you will), caring as much as he himself cares about everything he does and thinks. Each of us is a seemingly infinite well of subjective experience and we keep ourselves busy enough with ourselves that we probably don’t have the time to care about all of anyone else.

But the minutia matter! I think recounting minutia may be one of the most important ways of relating to people.

Sharing Minutia: Process

I saw a movie once (Shall We Dance) that suggested the point of marriage was to have someone to serve as a witness to one’s life: a character says, “We need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet… I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage, you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things… all of it, all of the time, every day. You’re saying ‘Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your witness’.”
When I was in college, a pastor of mine noted that after his wife returned home from a month-long trip, he had to force himself to remember to share with her all the thoughts that crossed his mind. While she was away, he’d think, from time to time, “Oh, I should remember to tell her about this.” But when she returned, he continued reflexively making mental notes to tell her about his minutia, rather than actually telling her.

As suggested immediately above, this mutual witnessing is not passive. Neither is it only active on the side of the witness. Rather, we have to surrender information to our witnesses. During a long period of inactivity in in my life, one of my life’s witnesses would ask me sometimes how my day had been. I felt bad about how little had happened in my day, and my frustration with my own lack of activity led me to answer the query with something like, “Nothing happened today. Nothing to talk about. Tell me about your day instead!” Sure, I had nothing more to tell than the most minute minutia, but not offering even that makes my life truly empty and makes me into someone who, ultimately, cannot be interacted with.

Sharing Minutia: Purpose

Perhaps our most immediate experience of our lives is in the traffic jams, the meals that turned out well, the advertisements we found funny, the times we misplace our checkbooks. Because we care about our own minutia, it is in the minutia that we come to know one another. I can sit in class with someone for two years without knowing him although I know a great deal about what he thinks of Kant and of the Historical Jesus. Or I can ask him what kind of tea he is drinking, or how long it takes him to fill up one of those little moleskin notebooks everyone takes notes in these days.

This is why I’m so bad at long-distance friendships. I don’t naturally tell people about all that unimportant day-to-day living when my communication with them is no more than a phone call once a month or an occasional e-mail. And I don’t think to ask, either. There isn’t time. And it’s easier to talk about politics or theology or some other external topic (because, unlike my former pastor, I haven’t been noting and saving up all month all the things I’d like to tell my friend).

Sharing Minutia: Practice

I recently moved, and I find fascinating the transitions I observe in my modes of friendship with individuals “there” and individuals “here.” My closest friends “there” slowly fade to silhouettes of the people I knew, because I don’t hear how their long walks in the park went, or what strange characters they met at the grocery. I learn instead that “things are going well in the new place.”

Conclusion

Talk about your minutia! (But not on this blog, please.)