A friend of mine recently announced that he was giving up the Internet for Lent, with the exception of necessary e-mail and a brief window on Sundays to actually read the electronic content that must be read. I found this odd. I start every day by looking over a dozen blogs, a few news sites, and a little app called Facebook. Everyday, including Sundays. Why? Because I’m afraid I’ll miss something. I want to be in-the-know, so I subscribe to a dozen magazines, spend an hour a day “keeping up on things” via the magic web and scratch my old-school itches with a daily walk to grab the morning paper still stuck in the frozen slush at the end of the driveway.
Now, you’d think this would lead to a mind filled with interesting facts and informed opinions on the greater good for the greatest number of mankind. However, the cracked cranium of Grant Wentzel is really just an un-indexed pit of half-remembered half-truths battling about for a moment in the mental sun. And like a board meeting with a bunch of budding bigshots, it’s the loudest, brashest, and most bombastic butthole that gets the floor and carries the vote.
A love of learning and a catholic disposition is a lovely thing, but I’ve really got to re-evaluate my motivation for such unfiltered consumption. This informational gluttony is more about the Fear of being left out and a futile quest for Power and Control over the great unknown. My mind is left crapulous, constipated. There’s Anxiety in it, and I need to let it go.
