Since September 11, watching CNN has become a rather involved activity for me. I literally become nervous when I switch to the Cable News Network.

My heart rate increases every time I push the numbers two and nine in sequence. I worry that when CNN flicks to life, I'm going to see something I don't want to see; something that will, once again, alter life irrevocably.

But day after day, I sit on my couch, heart-racing and palms sweaty, tensely watching for more hours than I'd like to admit.

I was sitting in my typical CNN couch position two nights ago, when a little news bit came marching across the endless news ticker at the bottom of the television screen. It proclaimed that the nineteenth century's most famous feuding families, the Hatfield's and the McCoy's, are at it again. This time the feud is over access to a cemetery where lay buried three McCoy boys murdered by the Hatfield's in 1882.

Apparently a Hatfield descendant, John Vance, won't let people pass over his property to gain cemetery access, which has rubbed McCoy descendent, Joseph Justice, in quite the wrong way. Justice has threatened possible legal action if Vance refuses to allow access to the hallowed McCoy ground.

Learning about this feud, there was only one thing I could think: How terribly irrelevant.

Now, it's not as though I wasn't feeling sympathy for the Hatfield-McCoy situation. I mean, I can completely understand how family rivalries can explode over the course of 12 years stemming from a misunderstanding about a pig.

It's just that when one is worrying about powdered anthrax and holy war, it's hard to get worked up about blood-feuds from the 1880s. Compared to the quest to bring al-Qaida and bin Laden to justice, bringing justice to the Hatfield-McCoy dispute seems quite irrelevant.

Feelings of irrelevance are prevalent as of late, and not just in news stories about ancient family feuds. In fact, in addition to being involved in a complicated and unprecedented international front on terrorism, we Americans are involved in a personal war over relevance and irrelevance in our day-to-day lives.

All sorts of things that once seemed relevant are suddenly cased in a feeling of irrelevance. I once cared greatly about my performance on Spanish exams. Suddenly, compared to the news of "professional-grade" anthrax being found in Senator Daschle's office, my academic performance just doesn't seem as important. Looking at photos of decimated Afghan houses makes me feel guilty being concerned with something as irrelevant as the messy state of my own apartment.

The fear of future terrorist attacks does indeed make the fear of not being able to find good parties this weekend quite small-minded.

Irrelevance has quite the upper-hand in this battle. After all, when compared to any major world-event, do any individual activities seem relevant?

When I compare making dinner for myself to the fall of the Berlin Wall, dinner seems of miniscule global importance. In comparing time spent hanging-out with friends to World War II, that hanging-out time is dwarfed in global relevance.

Of course, we usually have no reason to compare our mundane daily activities to huge world events.

While my preparation of a savory and nutritious meal, in the "grand scheme of things," is irrelevant compared to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the comparative irrelevance of my food-prep doesn't normally become evident because the comparison is usually never made to begin with.

Along the same lines, no one turns to his or her friend at a bar and says, "Man . . . compared to World War II, our hanging-out means nothing."

But the terrorist attacks on America have forced us to compare everything we do to a global level of relevance. Since the attacks have hit home, literally and figuratively, for so many of us, we cannot distance their reality from our daily activities the way we have been able to with other world events. The events unfolding now have become the benchmark for all judgments of relevance, and considering the immense scope of these events, it is not surprising how small our normal activities seem.

In order to keep our lives from seeming small, we are all going to have to try as hard as we can to realize that while many of our daily activities are tiny from a global perspective, they still retain relevance from a personal perspective.

In fact, rather than being totally deemed irrelevant, upon reflection those things that are truly personally relevant should take on a whole new importance after September 11.

Over Fall Break, I went to the World Trade Center ruins. Seeing the dust rising, the cranes lifting debris, and the countless police, fire and military personnel behind the effort was too powerful a scene for me to do justice through words.

The next day, I spent the afternoon with my little brother. We got the oil changed in my car and ate lunch at Taco Bell.

At a global level of relevance, compared to what I had witnessed at the WTC ruins, spending time with my brother seems of as little relevance as the new Hatfield-McCoy dispute, right? But from a personal level of relevance, I can't even begin to tell you how important that time was to me.

As we nervously sit, clenching our fists and watching CNN and as we do the calculus of post 9-11 relevance and irrelevance, we must realize that the personal can and must still remain relevant.

After all, if those who have been behind these terrorist acts knew that we felt as though our day-to-day activities were now irrelevant, I would think that they would consider their mission accomplished.