Tortured by minutiae
The tyranny of Small Things
Do you find yourself increasingly bothered by the mundane and insignificant? Does the plethora of daily inanities nag at you?
The other morning I was confronted by the number of spare loo rolls in the toilet and wondered whether we had enough; the plates and cutlery that needed to be put away from the previous night chirped from the drainer; the knowledge that I need to get back into the gym dug me in the ribs; and the mental to-do list that I’d compiled on return from holiday was already whispering to me, and it’s wasn’t even nine-o’clock!
There’s shouting too - but the shouting comes from my work: needing to start section three of the new piece of fiction I’ve begun to draft; the Substack posts I want to write (including this one!); the non-fiction project I started then shelved a few weeks ago - and which is beckoning to be picked up again…
It’s a cacophony.
Was that what Kirk Douglas was trying to portray, the noises in Van Gogh’s head that wouldn’t give him any peace?
Of course, in my case it isn’t that bad; I’m unlikely to want to cut off my ear in protest! But that conflict and tension is always there.
My kids are at university and I envy them the freedom a college lifestyle offers. I know it; I’ve been there. And I fear that, like me, they’ll only realise what they had when it’s too late, once they’ve left and suddenly missed it.
In the Bob Redford film, The Natural, Glenn Close says something like “I believe we have two lives; the life we learn with, and the life we live with after that.” It’s a wonderful line.
But now I’m old enough and - hopefully - wise enough to recognise all the noises for what they are. And to be able to deal with them, prioritise accordingly. Isn’t that the challenge we writers - indeed all creatives - face: to find the balance, and then do what needs to be done…
Grocery shopping is my minutiae madness. It just seems to take far too much time to be worth it. Shouldn't I be doing something else?