Feeling Overcome By “Information”?
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“Great Wave off Kanagawa2” by Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎) – Restored version of File:Great Wave off Kanagawa.jpg (rotated and cropped, dirt, stains, and smudges removed. Creases corrected. Histogram adjusted and color balanced.). Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa2.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Great_Wave_off_Kanagawa2.jpg[/caption]
The biologist E.O. Wilson famously wrote, “We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom.” He wrote this line in 1998, just as the Internet was becoming the means through which most of us experienced the world. If we were drowning in 1998, the tsunami of information then just over the horizon has now thoroughly overtaken us, pummeling us with not just a constant stream, but with an unrelenting, pounding of wave upon wave.
In early August I concluded that I was in grave danger of drowning, and needed, somehow, to escape. I realized that the constant barrage of information, in the form of news stories, articles, blog posts, podcasts, and the like was, in a very real way, dominating my life. I felt pressure to stay on top of the latest news and information, as well as cultural commentary on church and society. I spent a lot of time on this day-to-day, constantly clicking and scrolling, repeating the addict’s mantra, “Just one more” over and over and over. I know that I’m not alone, as this compulsion was brilliantly satirized in a sketch on the show Portlandia.
In a moment of clarity, I believe that God spoke to me, saying, “Fast.” My answer was, “Fast from what?” I believe that God answered, “From information.” My response to this began, “But what about . . .” By the end of my conversation with God, I committed to a 40-day fast from information intake. So, I stopped reading newspapers, magazines, journals, and books (except for the bible and study helps for preparing sermons), and also stopped listening to podcasts and NPR. I knew how unhealthy my attitude toward information intake had become when, standing on the metaphorical shore, I found myself believing that, by standing there, I was actually missing out on life.
Over the 40 days I spent more time in silence, listening to music (I had to be careful with that, though, as sometimes keeping up with the newest, trendiest bands is just as strong a temptation as staying up with the newest social commentary), reading scripture, hiking, and spending time listening to and talking with people. By the end of the 40 days my heart and mind were in a completely different place, and, honestly, I found that I wasn’t quite as excited to jump back into the ocean of information as I thought that I might be.
In the past two months I have slowly waded in, but I find that my craving for information isn’t as compulsive as it had been. The pressure that I put on myself to stay on top of “knowledge” was relieved by the ability to see both the impossibility and the undesirability of such a pursuit. On the shore my “craving for wisdom,” to use Wilson’s words, was stimulated, and I discovered that wisdom is not related to the quantity of information taken in, but rather to the way in which one can love and be loved.
I’ve begun to enjoy reading again, now free from the self-imposed pressure to stand beneath the relentless tide of information. I’ve also begun to pursue wisdom much more intentionally, which, for today, I find summed up so well in a lawyer’s answer to his own question about what must be done to inherit eternal life: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself” (Luke 10.27). As Jesus affirms his answer, which is a combination of Deuteronomy 6:4 and Leviticus 19:18, the lawyer begins to wonder, “Now, who is my neighbor?” Jesus’ answer is the Parable of the Good Samaritan.
In a New York Times column earlier this year, David Brooks observes, following St. Augustine, that it is impossible truly to “understand others from some detached objective stance.” He goes on to say, again following Augustine, that, “love impels you not just to observe, but to seek union — to think as another thinks and feel as another feels.”
It seems to me, then, that gathering information is, at best, a prelude to love. At its worst, though, gathering information is a colossal distraction from what really matters in life—love of God and neighbor, even the neighbor you’ve been taught to hate.
Brooks concludes his article with a challenge to information gatherers: “Those of us who work with data and for newspapers probably should be continually reminding ourselves to bow down before the knowledge of participation, to defer to the highest form of understanding, which is held by those who walk alongside others every day, who know the first names, who know the smells and fears.”
Challenge accepted.