Rachel has done it again. Another blog entry spawned from some off-handed comment she made.

First of all, I guess you all need to know how this all went down. She and I were chatting away earlier this morning (Tonight? Who knows. It’s 2:00 right now, and I haven’t gone to bed. I’m on the fence on that issue, but that’s another entry.), and I showed her a story I had written. After she read it, she, very graciously, complimented me on a well written piece. With instant messaging being an entirely textual medium, I genuflected virtually, like so: “*bows and does that stupid finger twirl thing*”

I suddenly realized that I had just said “that stupid finger twirl thing.” That may not seem like such a big deal, since I don’t know of a word that conveys that particular idea, but after being lauded for writing ability, it was a little non sequitur. I mentioned my amusement that I could be so articulate at some times and so non-articulate at others; to which she replied, “HAHA, because it makes you human.”

It’s a wonder to me that the imperfection, the non sequitur, and the idiosyncratic are the definitions of who we are as humans. If you really think about it, you’ll notice it’s true. When you describe a person, you point out the things which stand out. “She had long, blone hair and big boobs” “He walked with a limp, and he only had one arm.” You wouldn’t describe a person as “Well, she was a perfectly average woman. She had normal hair, and a run-of-the-mill chest.” or “Well, he was male, and he had on some clothes, and he had arms, and legs.”

It is the strange, the different, the out of place that catch and hold our attention, to the point were we might just be losing our appreciation for the merely average, the mundane, the day-to-day. Have you ever stopped to consider how amazing your car is? How amazing that computer you’re using to read this is? How amazing it is that by rubbing a piece of processed wax a person can be clean? How amazing it is that the pen you have in your pocket is nearly identical to millions of others?

The world around us if chock-full of amazing things, and often, if they’re really examined, the day-to-day workings of our lives can really make us human.