Jul 11, 2010 21:12
I am overwhelmed at the amount of information I see (or tangentially come into contact with) on a daily basis. A new podcast - more facebook updates from friends - news stories that perpetuate and ramble and add and combine until they fall off some sort of information cliff.
Several weeks ago, I watched a TV show on my computer - something that a friend showed to me, which, I felt obligated to finish ... I guess out of perverse sense of completion anxiety. During one of the episodes - a character, the misogynistic, has sex all of the time, finds someone new to sleep with at a bar every night, guy ... deliberately gives his number out on national TV, and people start calling him. Not just people ... girls ... perpetually, constantly - a gold box of perversion awaiting his every aching moment, persuading him, suggesting him, taunting him. But an odd thing happens - he never has sex with anyone, not because he wishes not to - but because the unknown, the someone just calling him while he's in the middle of attempting to sleep with someone else might be better.
He has a (seemingly) unlimited range of options - but because the unknown might be better than the known, he keeps searching for that unknown ... until, frustrated, he throws out his phone - not because he doesn't want people tempting him - no - he just wants to enjoy five minutes of euphoria without his mind (almost ironically) suggesting that the next tempt might be better than the one he has.
I feel this way when reading - fifteen minutes into the book, wondering whether another book would best absorb my time ... searching on Amazon, filling up my cart, scanning the introductions, overwhelmed at how many books I could be reading rather than the one I am currently reading, and I don't end up reading much, and I take five times as long (as I should have taken) to finish a book.
And when online - so much potential information that I could have that I doubt the information that I do have is worth the time spent having it ... that instead of contentment with the choice I have made, an almost overwhelming doubt that I could make the correct choice ... a never ending search for that optimal, nonexistent piece of information.
With many options, no option is the best.
Some days I wish I could just return to a simpler time, with no facebook, no unlimited reading choices, no overwhelming information, no overabundance ... just a few, clear, discernible ideas that I could ponder for a while without wishing I was doing something else or doubting that my pondering is worth the time spent doing it.