The Mundane And The Magnificent

It's funny, the post I'm about to write has been bouncing around in my head for a few days, and then I noticed today that I've got Carnival of the Mundane hosting duties coming up this Friday. It is as if the mundane has made itself a theme 'round these parts. Hopefully that's not the norm, but that's mine neither to decide nor to fret over.

But the mundane, yes, it would seem life is full of it. The typical ordinary unexciting experiences. This series of inconveniences and problems and appointments, tasks and to-dos, coping mechanisms and incomplete lists. Basically all the shit, you know? It's easy to get mired down in it and start to believe, albeit subconsciously, that the mundane is all there is, that life is little more than hum-de-dum-ho-hum-bumbledy-bum. Or some such nonsense.

But is the mundane really all that, um, mundane? I hate using the same word twice in a sentence.

But to answer the question, yeah, it sure as fuck can be. I'm not the guy who's here to start talking some self-help babblety-bub about squeezing all you can out of every second you're alive, and how every moment of life is a precious moment worthy of commemoration in porcelain statuary. Not that I don't sort of believe those things sometimes, at least on some conceptual level, but the truth is I don't have the talent for actually living that way most of the time, and I'm really amazed by people who do. Life may have its thrills, but most of the time, there are bills to be paid and errands to run and problems, big scary serious problems hanging over your head that won't go away just because you ignore them. Oh, and then I gotta go to work. And it's this stuff that I tend to get bogged down in, and I forget that there's more to life than all that, all the stuff.

It's the things and the people that pull me out of that kind of autopilot mode of living that I'm truly thankful for. And the beautiful thing is, it can be damn near anything. One day last week it was a Coldplay song. This weekend it was an afternoon nap with my son asleep on my shoulder. It can be a conversation, or laughing my ass off with my wife, or a great blog post, sometimes an inspirational sermon or a stranger's unexpected kindness. Whatever. Hell, sometimes I think that's all that a spiritual experience really is: something that yanks us out of ourselves for just a moment, just long enough to remind us in so many words, images, and/or sensations that we're more than just our weaknesses and strengths, our virtues and vices, our accomplishments and failures.

I don't really know how to conclude this collection of thoughts, so I'll just leave you all with wishes for a good week. Oh, and get those Carnival entries in!