too much information....

At the Freakonomics blog, Stephen Dubner asks "what to do about too much data."

The problem is ... reading and research is so much fun that it is really hard to limit yourself. Especially in this age of Google (and Google Books) and Amazon and even Wikipedia (yes, I was an early detractor but have come around on certain subjects), I am constantly trying to take a little sip from a firehose, and it’s nearly impossible. Reading too much inevitably turns into wanting to write too much; in this case, shorter will be better, but it takes a lot of effort and a long time to get the right three paragraphs (as opposed to a much easier but, to my mind, less effective 12 paragraphs).

The problem is that the more I’ve read — and the more data I’ve consumed ... — the better those three paragraphs will be in the end. It reminds me of making maple syrup, which we did every winter as kids. You’d run around collecting all this sap, gallons and gallons of it from the trees you’d tapped, and then stay up all night boiling it down on an open fire — all to produce one little jar of syrup.

Nice metaphor. Unfortunately, nowadays we're often unwilling to invest the time and effort to tend that boiling maple=syrup kettle....

Meanwhile, in the WSJ's Juggle blog, Rachel Silverman asks whether "documenting" your family (i.e., photos, scrapbooks, etc) can take too much time.

I’m ... overwhelmed by the sheer volume of photos that digital photography makes possible. We literally have hundreds of pictures of our son, only 10 months old .... Looking through all the pictures and organizing them can sap up more time and energy than the events that we’ve documented.

Is it worth it? I wonder if it’s possible to take too many pictures, to spend too much time documenting, to focus too hard on capturing an event in an image or video, to rely too much on photos for memory, rather than really living and experiencing a moment and trying to imprint it in our brains. Sometimes, when my husband and I forget the camera we even get bummed out, at least for a moment, because we can’t capture whatever adorable expression or gesture our baby makes, rather than just truly enjoying the experience as is.

So true. Makes me think of the opening of Choruses From The Rock by T. S. Eliot:

The endless cycle of idea and action,

Endless invention, endless experiment,

Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;

Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;

Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.

All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,

All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,

But nearness to death no nearer to GOD.

Where is the Life we have lost in living?

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?