the myth of keeping up

in a blog entry, the creating passionate users guys (three software/game developer geeks "passionate about how the brain works and how to exploit it for better learning and memory") make a good point about the myth of keeping up. it's really comforting to hear this from leading-edge people in information technology - if they can't keep up, who can? better yet, if they don't want to keep up, why should we mere mortals?

what kind of things am i trying to keep up with? certain types of information, definitely - for example, i'm interested in new ideas about customer service. amazon shows 3111 books for that. when i go to altavista and search for a narrower term, "customer delight", on pages built or modified within the last year, i get 73,100 results. no, i can't keep up with that. information overload.

oh, and i've just decided that i won't include any more links in this blog entry. no more following links to the nth degree - at least not tonight. that's a start.

but there's so many more things to keep up on. the dishes. the garden. the news.

you know what, though? i have this feeling that most of this is what the buddhists call maya - illusion. information overload is always around - the amount of visual, auditory and tactile information available to us at any moment is monumental. plus temperature, smells, tastes and that elusive sense of knowing (sixth sense?).

at any moment we need to choose what information to pay attention to. right now, the evening sun plays on the tall trees behind my neighbour's house, the spring leaves fresh and green. the play of light and shadow creates ripples that make me think of piano music ...

and i'm sitting on my big golden chair, and i hear my computer's fan going, and my boots feel a little tight, and and and ...

so much information!

only i can choose what to pay attention to. only i can cut through the illusion of "too much".

isabella mori
counselling in vancouver
www.moritherapy.com