What does the pocket lint of our lives say about us?

In a comment on my last post, on grocery lists, Alicia provided a link to the Spencer Shaffner’s Gallery of Found Objects, where you can see more found lists as well as found notes and found art. Shaffner also has some interesting links on his site, which led me to the Journal of Mundane Behavior and their links to articles on the study of the mundane.

One article, “Is That a Rut or a Groove You're In?” reminded me of my post yesterday on Mistakes, art and life – which was only partly about mistakes, really. The things I linked to were also about shaking up routines to more fully experience life, to be more conscious of our experiences, to get out of our cocoon or fortress or perfectly ordered life. An excerpt from the article:

Millions of people do the same things the same way, every day, over and over, for weeks, months, years. Experts say this is normal and healthy -- as well as stultifying and dangerous….

 

The way to determine whether a routine is efficient and comfortable or mundane and oppressive, experts agreed, is to consciously ponder it.

 

"If your routine is boring, if you are lethargic about it, think about changing it," said Csikszentmihalyi, a professor of psychology and management at Claremont.

 

You needn't reject your entire routine, he said. Just consider alternatives. "The problem is, people rarely stop to reflect whether what they are doing they have to do, or they enjoy doing," he said.

The second article is “Banal retentive: Serious scholars are mining cultural insights from our grocery lists and mailing labels.” It’s a fascinating look at how scholars analyze the “pocket lint” of our lives and, like anthropologists in some ancient culture, tell us what it means about our culture, what we value, how we relate with each other:

Traditionally, scholars tend to focus first on extraordinary individuals or big events, and second on extreme behaviors or perversions, Schaeffer says. But he feels they're missing a crucial point.

 

"So many of our relationships rely upon things that are utterly boring: whether or not the other person puts the cap on the toothpaste; whether someone can put up with how somebody else manages the dirty dishes. Relationships die because of these things."

 

Some argue that the stakes are even higher than that. "The mundane is truly the world where we manifest our responses to society, the political, and the economic," says Susan Willis, a culture critic at Duke University. "In the culture of the mundane, we don't necessarily recognize that we're putting ourselves on the line, but in fact we are. That's where we play out who we are and how we relate to the society that we live in."

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