Minutia

   Remember way way back when books such as Facts On File and games such Trivial Pursuit were the rage?  Well it seems to be happening again, as authors John Lloyd, John Mitchinson and James Harkin added yet another book to their "fact" series, this one titled 1,234 Quiet Interesting Facts to Leave You Speechless.  It was certainly filled with lots of "facts," but to be honest I began to lose interest about a third of the way through.  It seems that we all receive so much information that while such tidbits can be entertaining for awhile, in the end they become just more for our brains' information overload section to discard...but then this series of books by the authors have turned them into bestsellers so perhaps I am alone in this feeling.  But it did get me thinking.  Their opening pages mention this: The word "fact" has a curious history...When it first appeared in English in the early 15th century, it had quite a different meaning from the one we use today.  It came from the Latin facere, "to do or make," and meant "something done" -- a "deed" or "act."  And, for the first hundred years of its existence, it carried mostly negative connotations...As "silly" once meant "holy" and "bully" meant "sweetheart," "facts" weren't so much true as bad.  The world, the truth, and particularly the language is in flux everywhere.  Today, we use "fact" as a signifier of truth --something that has actually occurred-- but...even the best facts often don't last forever.  If one were a bad enough comedian, one could almost end with "and that's a fact."

   So people such as advertisers or health care providers who publish such "facts" have to carefully decide what small bit of data or detail will stick with you.  Stop for a minute and think back.  If you were given ten minutes to write down a series of "facts," what would jump onto the page?  That over a million of our "earths" could fit into our sun? (nice boggling graphic to help you visualize that)  Or the other way, that "there are moer bacteria in your armpit than there are people in the world?" (as taken from the authors' book)  Or would you remember more an ad that mentions 1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer?  More striking, right?  Except that even that "fact" is based on a study from 2007 to 2009.  Even the government's National Cancer Institute adds that: According to the current report, the risk that a woman will be diagnosed with breast cancer during the next 10 years, starting at the following ages, is as follows (I've edited the numbers down for easier reading): Age 30 (1 in 227), Age 40 (1 in 68), Age 50 (1 in 42), Age 60  (1 in 28), Age 70 (1 in 26).  What happened to the 1 in 8?

   There exists all sorts of people and commentators who can spew out "facts," or at least versions of them as Facebook is discovering.  But while at a dinner party or watching the news, few of us have time to check them or dispute them...or perhaps even be interested in them.  Those small details can seem almost irrelevant in the big scheme of things.  We filter what we want to hear and to absorb, this miutia of the world today.  But sometimes it is the small things that do indeed matter, and little of it falls into that field of "facts."

   My friend recently underwent her third open heart surgery, this time to remove a stubborn blood clot that wasn't responding enough to thinners and was now getting too dangerous to dislodge with a stent.  Her surgery went fine but post-op, she fell into a coma and after three days she awoke to a body half paralyzed on her left side.  Did a small portion of the blood clot dislodge?  The good news is that within another few days her body began to clear and muscle movement and speech all returned to normal, something that surprised even her doctors.  Now one of our dogs has taken a tumble, her back leg failing to support her.  The vet thinks with her age and history of deformaties (she was born with two dislocated hips and a wonky knee) that the time might have come where neurologic damage is beginning, a disc compressing or her arthritis starting to pinch a nerve.  Something small...but then something huge.

   By the same token, I found that reading (and not finishing) that book of "facts' was interesting but not as important as the other small details of life...things like my friend's blood clot or my dog's pinched nerve.  Or even something as simple as seeing our first snowfall the other morning as pictured above.  Our world is filled with such minutia, wonders so simple and small that they could fill a book...step outside and view your own everyday trivia.  You may just discover that you don't need to know 1,234 facts, but that it is indeed knowing that it's the little things that matter.