Kitty Ostapowicz's life is an open book. Well, maybe not a book but it's open nonetheless.

Like many of her peers, Ostapowicz has both a MySpace page and a Livejournal. There, readers learn, in what Emily Nussbaum of New York Magazine characterized as "raw and affecting detail," about aspects of her life that are usually reserved for intimates, if they're shared at all: "the death of her parents, her breakups, her insecurities, her ambitions," her menstrual cycle and her sex life or lack thereof.

The willingness of Ostapowicz and many of her peers to live in such an exposed manner left Nussbaum feeling "very, very old" and concluding that we are in the midst of the greatest "generation gap" since rock and roll opened a cultural chasm between parents and their kids back in the 1950s.

Not everyone is thrilled by this cultural development. In the January 29 issue of The Nation, Lakshmi Chaudhry took the age of what she called "micro-celebrity" to the woodshed. What Nussbaum called a "generation gap," Chaudhry called a "significant generational shift in levels of narcissism" where "it is hardly surprising that the less gifted among us are willing to fart our way into the spotlight."

While others aren't as harsh as Chaudhry, they are worried about the possible implications of this voluntary embrace of a "transparent society" where more-or-less constant surveillance and the attendant lack of privacy are a given. The Boston Phoenix recently ran an article about colleges and universities "increasingly monitoring students' activity online and scrutinizing profiles, not only for illegal behavior, but also for what they deem to be inappropriate speech."

This monitoring has resulted in disciplinary action for those already enrolled and the denial of admission for applicants. As Virginia Postrel put it, a generation of young people face the real prospect of their "teenage persona" following them around forever.

What's missing in all of this is an explanation of why people are opting to live their life in public. While technology, especially what's been called "Web 2.0" — user-driven and defined sites like You Tube and MySpace — can explain the technological "how" of this exposure, it gives us no insight into the motivations of those exposing themselves.

When you consider how many of what we regard as fundamental American "rights," from collecting AK-47s to late-term abortions, are grounded in the "right to be left alone," the idea of a generation voluntarily surrendering that "right" seems incomprehensible, at least to someone whose doormat reads "come back with a warrant" as mine does. The motivation to invite scrutiny by strangers must be rooted in powerful needs.

While the narcissism Chaudhry mentions no doubt plays a part, there's a desperate quality to much of what's posted that can't only be explained by the belief that you are incredibly fascinating. Few of the revelations involve scientific breakthroughs, blazing insights or joining Al Qaeda — much of the stuff being revealed is quotidian to the point of banality. Who hasn't been through a break-up or even experienced painful personal loss?

This recitation of the stuff of everyday life is a tacit admission that the revealers, on some level, know that, as Tyler Durden would no doubt tell them, they're not "beautiful and unique snowflakes." They know that they're, in fact, fairly ordinary and they can only meet their "need to feel significant and admired and, above all, to be seen" through the quantity and explicitness of their revelations, not their quality. Ironically, in a world where many of your peers are doing the same, this self-revelation makes them seem more ordinary, not less.

This begs an obvious question: What's wrong with being ordinary? A lot, if you live in a culture like ours that has turned "ordinary" into an epithet, a synonym for "mediocre." Then, the fear of being (or appearing) "ordinary" exceeds the fear of possible humiliation or any other repercussions of inappropriate disclosure.

Case in point: A recent ad for a brokerage firm featured pictures of luminaries such as Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison. The pitchman told viewers that just as these folks didn't settle for being "ordinary" scientists and inventors, they shouldn't settle for being "ordinary" investors.

It's the kind of claim that, if you think about it for about, say, five seconds, strikes you as ridiculous. If by being an "ordinary investor" you mean someone who does well enough to provide for their family and a comfortable retirement, the only sane answer should be "sure, why not? What's wrong with that?"

Turning "ordinary" into an epithet requires forgetting (or denying) that "ordinary" is the stuff that real life is made of. "Ordinary" comes from the Latin ordinarius meaning "customary, regular, usual, orderly." How we handle the ordinary — and not how many people know who we are — is the standard against which we should measure our lives. It, and not some fleeting (or even not-so-fleeting) attention, is what gives our lives significance. (For the Christian, it's what Jesus meant when He said, "He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much.")

Along the way, getting this vital bit right ceased being sufficient — being ordinary came to be regarded as a first cousin of sloth. The ability and willingness to block out the detritus of everyday life that begs for our attention and to focus on what made the spotlight shine on us came to be regarded as what separates the "great" from the rest of us. It didn't matter that in retrospect a disproportionate number of the focused "great" ones seemed to have failed at the customary, regularly and usual tasks of life. (Ask their children and spouses.) By the time "retrospect" got here our gaze had turned to a yet another "great" one.

This discontent with being ordinary isn't limited to "mainstream" culture: Many Christians have been taught to think and feel the same way. Following the recent release of "Amazing Grace," the move about William Wilberforce and the abolition of the slave trade, American Christians have been called to imitate Wilberforce. Not "only" by emulating his personal virtues but by studying his tactics and strategies and thus, like him, "do something great for God."

I have a better idea: We should strive to experience what G.K. Chesterton called "the ecstasy of being ordinary." While Chesterton admired extraordinary men like St. Francis of Assisi, he also gave the "social scruples and conventional conditions that are normal and even noble in ordinary men" that hold "decent societies together" their due. In fact, it was because he appreciated "ordinary men" that he could make sense of the extraordinary ones.

Likewise, "Chesterton could be made happy by the sudden yellowness of a dandelion." He took "fierce pleasure in things being themselves," whether it was the "wetness of water," "fieriness of fire" or the "steeliness of steel." As David Fagerberg of Notre Dame wrote, for Chesterton, "on every encounter, at every turn, with every person, there is cause for happiness.... We have been given a world crammed with a million means to beatitude."

In other words, our "ordinariness" contains everything that is necessary to be content. That's part of St. Paul meant when he wrote "I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content." He could see those "millions means of beatitude" and understood that on some days you inadvertently turn the world upside-down and on other days you make tents. Ultimately, what matters is to live admirably, not be admired.