To Do List...

We live in an age where there is so much information that we’ve actually run out of things to say. To do lists become best sellers. Interesting, sure. But we’re still talking about to do lists, analyzing every trivial detail of our existence, those things once considered mundane now considered of serious discussion. Information overload, reductionism taken to its logical end.

Those significant things, things costing lives, things causing pain and suffering in others, are sometimes too much to handle so we focus on the trivial. War in Iraq? We’ll complain and moan but it’s way too much to deal with so we immerse ourselves in to do lists which, by the way, never contain such things as "Protest war at local court house" or "Travel to Washington to protest" but contain such things as upgrade cell phone or pick up dog food. How many of our to do lists contain things such as "Help at local soup kitchen" or "travel to India" not to see the Taj Mahal but to work with the poor in the slums? How many of our to do lists are "other" oriented?

I do it. We all do it. That's why it's interesting.

But it's often easier to argue about theology, or to do lists, than deal with the real world stuff, the messy, tangible, dingy, nasty, filthy shit that is in the world. Although maybe the to do list is the real world.