Little Things Are Big

Having just caught a cold, I am reminded how important one’s usually ignored body parts are, in my case – sinuses. What is a sinues but a nothing, a cavity, a membrane or lining that a rhinovirus (so aptly named) simply loves. Right now, my adopted rhinoviri have made my sinuses into a garden. I don’t even want to think about the dandelions and thistles they are growing there. If I write stupid or disconnected things today, I’m blaming my adopted rhinovirii.
Little things are important. There were many times over the thirty-six years when I taught high school when I could hardly rhino myself to sit down and grade papers. Unlike the current educational bean-counters, politicians, and deformers (sorry, I meant “re-formers”), I knew all along that multiple choice assessments are of very limited use and certainly not able to reflect what students actually know or can do. My only solution to my motivation problem – go small. I paid myself one M & M or a few kernels of hot, buttered popcorn per paper. You want more popcorn, Lazybones? Read another paper. My students never knew it, but I’m also convinced they got better feedback because of chocolate, or salt and butter.
Little things are important. I read somewhere along the line (Men are from Mars; Women are from Venus?) that women are aggravatingly good at keeping score and they never forget. For a sex which is not nearly as obsessed with sports, points, or winning, I thought this was unfair, especially since most men like me are not nearly as adept at discussing feelings, processing subtleties, or verbal multi-tasking. I can barely be in a room with three women conversing. It’s like looking at a cubist painting under a strobe light. I suppose my wife would describe me as “a slow moving train.” Reposte for me usually occurs within in twenty-four hour period. However, it eventually occurred to me that the point system with women is actually a wonderful thing and is greatly to my advantage, primarily because of female sub-rule. All points are equal. So a new pair of gifted earrings, a sweet love note, cleaning the bathroom or checking the oil on her car and filling it up with gas — all count the same with my wife. This is amazing! What an advantage a guy has, as soon as he realizes this. How unlucky women are. After all, with men, a hug is not the same number of points as a kiss. Cleaning the bathroom, if even noticed at all, may not count for more than a single point.
No one can write a novel. A writer can only write a sentence, a thought at a time and keep going. Anyone who sets out to do a 500 page book will get stymied along the way. The same, I hope is true of bookselling. This week, the second week after Hibernal came out on Amazon in paperback, I sold 42 copies, with a few more on Kindle. Little things are important.
Little things are important. This truth is all over. A guitar only a little out of tune hurts my ears. A cold day with only a little wind seems so much colder. If you’re a Wisconsin Badger fan, you know the importance of two seconds at the end of games. A little nutmeg in eggnog makes a difference. A little note. A little thank you. A little sun. A little smile. A single cup of coffee. A single kiss. One M & M. Because we live in the now and now and can’t really go back or forward, the most important things are moment by moment. If you doubt or want more philosophical underpinning, read Eckart Tolle, The Power of Now.
Little things are important. Little moments. Because that is so, it is now time for you to stop reading and go do something important.