TMI

Too much information. Hours of Tivo. Subscribed to a bunch of blogs in all my areas of interest. Too many areas of interest. Boxes of CDs to listen to, drives full of music files to listen to. Books on shelves, books in boxes, books in storage. Magazines by the bagful. Social networks! Podcasts! The cherry on top: Netflix.

Filtering must be the answer, except it isn't. I want the variety, I want the challenge, I want the flood of data points large and small, obscure and exciting, thorny and fun. I want the poem of the day, I want the policy debate, I want the low comedy and the high art. Smarter channels might help, but a well organized flood is still a flood.

What i really miss is a quiet moment to contemplate a work of art. More than a moment. I want to wallow. Listen, carefully, to Beethoven and Feldman. Read, carefully, Whitman and Tolstoy. Sit for an hour in front of a Turner. The list goes on, and that's the problem. I need a 50 hour day.

The first impulse is to take advantage of the wealth of options. Then you realize you can't, there are too many options. So you look for a way to more efficiently pack all the possibilities in. Anything else would be compromise! Compromise is for the weak! You don't want to limit yourself!

Maybe you do. You can't do everything. That's not weakness, that's not laziness. That's realistic.

I accept that. No, not really, but I will. Choice isn't for the weak, it's the greater discipline!

But what will I choose?