I think I have started to write about this before, but taken off on another tangent. So, here it is in depth – the “information inundation” unraveled. Everyone talks about it, I know. But, I have a little different perspective having recently been in a culture where I was hungry for information, as most of what was around me was difficult for me to understand. Signs along the road, newspapers in waiting rooms, napkins at restaurants, conversations of passersby, slogans on the radio and stories on TV, were all in media-speak, which they don’t teach on language cds. I could usually figure out the gist of things, but I never got familiar enough with the language for it to come easily. Thus, it was a conscious choice TO understand things around me rather than NOT TO understand them. Rather than quickly scanning signs or advertisements and getting a sense of all of them, I had to choose the ones I wanted to figure out and make an effort to translate them, sometimes to comedic ends, as I didn’t quite get puns or figures of speech. Or, if I wasn’t in the mood for more input, I simply looked at text as art and conversation as music and moved along in my own little world.
Upon moving back, I was thrilled to have so much of my surroundings so readily accessible. I didn’t feel like a stranger – I could fully participate in the American culture. I realize that things in Sardinia were different on a number of levels: not only due to the language barrier, but there was also just less “stuff” to understand since we lived in a rural area there and now live in a city (or, at least a cheater city, as I like to call Portland – meaning that very much as a compliment).
This newfound level of participation was exciting. I felt stimulated and alive in a way I didn’t realize I’d missed while overseas. . . until it gave me a big, fat headache and I realized that my little brain couldn’t possibly hold in all this input without literally exploding. Thump, thump went my head as the information inside kicked and screamed to get out. I had no input filter, as I was eager and curious to take everything in, and so now I had to figure out how to let some of it back out. My rapidly firing synapses were like a pinball machine zipping from one thing to the next (have I used that metaphor before?), trying to snip off little samples of everything. I felt like a kid who eagerly gets out all her toys at once and then throws a tantrum because she can’t decide which one to play with. Too many is sometimes not enough and one can be the world - Basho should have said that. I found a great quote awhile back by George Wald, a scientist who studied vision, which says that something you are entranced and stimulated by can be like “a very narrow window through which at a distance one can see only a crack of light. As one comes closer the view grows wider and wider until finally through this small narrow window one is looking at the universe.” You just need to land on something and that, if you stick with it, it can become the world, encompass all of your passions, and design your understanding of everything around you.
So then, how do you choose? There’s only so much that one person can do and trying to do everything often results in accomplishing nothing. But, I am one of those people who reads every word accompanying each display at a museum exhibit. I have this fear that I might miss something good. But, I am beginning to understand that I will always miss something good and that’s okay.
Recently, on a stroll through the lovely brick streets of Portland, it dawned on me as I peeked in windows filled with brightly colored objects and read posters stuck on lampposts with upcoming events, that I’m really quite spoiled - how much better it is to have too many good things to do that you can’t possibly do them all than to be bored by everything around you such that you become lethargic and depressed. But, again, the trick is to learn that you must choose.
There was recently a great article by Sandra Tsing Loh, one of my favorite writers on what I like to call “the modern woman dilemma,” who talked about trying to balance family life and a career. This is really a subject for another blog. But, the sentiment, “You can do it all, if you live like a man,” is relevant. You have to let some things go for the sake of pursuing others and it can be fun when you do it for something worthwhile. Go for a walk on a sunny day and forget the pile of laundry on the floor – look at it and laugh as you walk out the door. This is really a different situation because sunny walks are definitely more appealing than laundry. The problem I described before is that there is often more than one good option and that those options compete with each other. And, then there’s always the worthless stuff as well. Somehow, you have to let just the good stuff filter through, keeping the junk out, and then choose amongst them.
So, I’m working on building a filter and on being glad that there is often more than one appealing option and that making a choice doesn’t necessarily close doors, it just challenges you to find a way to incorporate your other interests into what you are currently doing. And, there’s always tomorrow – one wouldn’t want to run out of interesting things to do and they don’t all have to happen at once, despite what the pace of life may seem to dictate. One thing at a time, Italian style; peek through the window, find your way into the sun and stay there awhile. The rest will follow.
