Why ponder the mundane? History seems to best remember those events that are, in retrospect, pivotal and grandiose, but does that make past everyday experiences less important?

Example: Blogs. These online journals (such as the site you are currently reading) often deal with the daily realities of life. Some authors attempt to be profound — few succeed. Mundane events from the authors’ endeavors therefore comprise most of the content of blogs. I do not say this in derision; it seems that people are fascinated by how normal people live their lives. Reality TV shows this. So does voyeur “artistic cinematography.” Even age-old gossip fits the bill. Is any of this really profound? No, but it is all strangely appealing.

In much the same way, research of the mundane is interesting. A group of people found such studies so worthwhile that they started the Journal of Mundane Behavior. The Journal is a “peer-reviewed scholarly … journal devoted to the study of … aspects of our everyday lives that typically go unnoticed.”

In the latest issue of the Journal, there is an article about “Understanding Television without Television” (Boyns and Stephenson, 2003). Therein, the authors investigate the reaction of sociology students to watching a television for half an hour. The catch? The T.V. remains turned off. Comments from the test subjects were often quite humorous while being quite telling:

• “As I sat watching the blank screen on the television, the first thing that crossed my mind was that I felt kind of stupid, that was before the feeling of boredom set in.”
• “The first thing I noticed was how dirty my screen was.”
• “I noticed how boring a TV set is. It is just plain and black. Not a very fun appliance to look at.”
• “As I looked at the screen, I felt like the TV was trying to talk to me. That feeling was so weird.”
• “I started to feel a little lonely, like I had been left out of something … I realized that I truly did not know what I would do without a television in my life.”

But perhaps the most insightful comment was this: “I actually felt like I was getting mad at the TV. I began to hate it. I hated it for all those wasted days of viewer’s lives they spent watching it, all the misrepresentations it created, the messages it sent. I hated it for being the reason for this assignment.” That comment captures the heart of the television problem: the enormous time commitment.

I simply do not have time to watch much television. Whenever I turn the tube on to watch the Simpsons or a hockey game, I feel an incredible sense of guilt. I know that I could be putting my time to better use and that watching the television is an act of arson, burning away the hours into a pitiful void. I watch very little television, certainly much less than the average three hours per day. For most of my junior year at college, I did not even have a television in my room. Well, okay, that’s not quite correct – I had a T.V. in my room, but it was not plugged in. The T.V. was there merely as a part of the decor. After roughly five months, my disdain for television lost to my desire to watch hockey, so the T.V. was finally hooked up. Even then, my viewing remained negligible.

I know several people (including Mutak and Grandstaff) who have virtually given up T.V. After graduation, neither bought televisions for their new residences. They seem to be getting along fine without the glorified CRTs.

Television can wield an enormous influence on your time, but only if you let it. If you resist the urge, think of everything else that you could accomplish.

You might even have time to ponder the mundane.

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Speaking of mundane, here’s an update into my recent activities.

Finals week at Rose is starting. I don’t have many finals, but I do have several class projects that must be completed. I intend to be back in Minnesota by the end of this week, which should allow ample time to hit the slopes (assuming the weather gets colder).

We had a big poker tournament amongst the Brothers at the Pike house on Saturday night. I lost in the first round, but it was a blast anyway. We have several very decent poker players in the house!

I woke up this morning to find that my left eyelid was swollen shut. I went to the doctor. He looked at it and diagnosed it as an allergic reaction to something. I couldn’t think of anything that I might have encountered that would have triggered such a reaction. Later on, it hit me: I got toothpaste in my eye the previous night. Stupid as this may sound, I’m not the only one to ever do it. In fact, numerous other people have written about such experiences. Suffice it to say that toothpaste-in-the-eye REALLY SUCKS!!!

But then, that’s all really mundane, isn’t it?