Substantive News

I spent yesterday evening at a wedding. The bride my husband's cousin, and the groom one half of an Irish twin set. The reception afforded my husband and I the opportunity to spend some time with the paternal branches of his family tree, many of whom we don't often see. Many of whom, it is worth mentioning, are quite intelligent.

Toward the end of the evening, among the din of tables being cleared and centerpiece bouquets being divvied up, I overheard and subsequently wandered into a conversation about substantive news.

The center of this conversation revolved around one of the brilliant cousin's idea for a website that offered you two types of news. He cited the latest American Idol results as an example of the first type of news, while the second type concerned things more of the ilk of likely replacements for retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. "You know," as he put it, "more substantive news." He even had a clever title for his little imaginary website, one that highlighted what a gross waste of time your searching the first type of news would be.

My external reaction was to chuckle with the rest of the people in the circle, while the voice in my head instantly tried say, over the holier-than-thou laughter, that I would much rather discover who had most recently left the Idol competition. I make this distinction between reactions because, uncharacteristically for me, they differed.

I do not involve myself with politics. While I realize the importance of political elections and appointments, I do not share the overly-stated life or death importance some people associate with said elections and appointments. Simply put, my caring does not affect the results, and the results do not affect my caring. I could happily go the rest of my life without learning who replaces any retiring justice of the Supreme Court.

I, as a former choir singer, former singer of the national anthem at sporting events and simply a lover of singing in general, do involve myself with the mundane and politically inconsequential reality t.v. that is American Idol. I watch it with my husband every week. I like to hear the competitors sing. I like to know each week who has received the least votes and is going home. I am emotionally invested in the singers and their collective fate.

Does this emotional investment I have not lend the topic substance?

I would have liked to pose this question to the group, had I not been so cold and tired and more interested in going home than started a debate in a fancy tent on a fancy patio at a fancy mansion. And as we helped the bride's parents gather what they would be taking home, I forgot about the thirty second conversation.

Today, though, those thirty seconds crept back into my head and got me thinking, hence this post. I hold no regard for how people judge my interests, trivial or otherwise, or what news other people deem substantive. If I have an interest in something, I should be able to "waste" my time on it.

Because time spent on things that make you happy is no waste at all.