Today

Today, I am mostly under duress of information. But more on that later.

There is so much information in the world it is maddening. Every second, every moment we think, our mind is assailed by more and more, proliferating at tremendous speed in our brains, shooting off over the precipice into the... void. It is filed by a diligent clerk on his high-stool, ticker tape streaming away; 'unnecessary, unusuable, useless, to be forgotten'. But where does it all go? There is no void really and certainly no clerk! Unless you have two jobs, poor sap.

The modern life is a wicked partner in this overload, if you didn't realise already. I almost long for those imagined days of memory and yore; Victorian British streets, in sepia tone, with poster-bearing news-urchins; a 1950's gentleman tipping his hat to dear old Vera as she pops to the grocery store for rations and to catch up with that nice Mr Clark, the knowledgeable proprietor. Or even, I long just for the corner-shop a couple of decades ago, to simply go and buy the daily news - because way back then, it wasn't all at our fingertips the instant we awoke in the morning... And it didn't cascade electrically into our minds like so much Matrix plot-line. I suppose I could have some willpower and not turn the computer on, but when did you last make that choice?

But... are we even evolved enough for that much interest in the world, politics, society, sport... everything, nothing? The printed word of bygone-time simplicity, I mean! Was that too much even, for the mammalian brain, only so recently conscious, only so recently becoming it's own historian and suchlike? How far shall we cast our mental net, before we begin to miss the fish that are swimming around our toes, glinting in weak sunlight right in front of us? Maybe the gentleman and his hat have it most right.

It's not that long since all such media were a figment in only the most wild of madmen's imagination. And don't get me started on ipods and mobile phones. For the case I'm arguing... well they don't get much credit. Of course... I can't quite condemn the internet, much as I'm trying to... in part... the irony of the argument indeed begins to shine, but we persevere.

Information and we are in a constant ballet (or is that thrash metal number on rusted guitar strings?), forming our tender conscious self. If not from our waking observations over a cup of tea, transmission of that morning paper or the tweet of the radio, then from our past and memory that come to claim us as we wake.

These assail us from that moment (perhaps at a slow pace, sure, but they'll gather speed!) To cope we constantly place thoughts and ideas, old, new, personal, arcane, alien and many more (sex or... whatever you feel) underneath, or on top of that daily grind. They are there, buzzing about as we concentrate on the immediate. Ah, the immediate! Surely a blessing in disguise, is our work. I mean... a distraction.

But yet still - us. We are under the keys as we leave the house in the morning, swirling somewhere in an oversized vat of coffee, on top of the fridge-freezer when we fish out a tub of ice-cream or bottle of vokda in the evening. Image and thought and information everywhere, our own and everybody else's too. Useless or useful, it's overwhelming.

Or is it meditation? Do our minds crave it? I don't feel like mine does, overly... But ever, it is there, or here, or thereabouts. Even in boredom, our lives are information and meditation, from the boringly colorful drapes to the overspilling bookshelf to the black-and-white photographs of friends on the wall.

Information, or meditation? Well I rather found myself feeling under it's duress today, so a little of both is my oblique answer. Depends how you respond to the process as we experience it now (in our time, these days...) Was it simpler all the way back with the Cavemen? Probably, though no doubt as brutal and red as Tennyson's Tooth and Claw... though whether one would really prefer that or not is a different Blog. Probably quite a short one too. I say though that now, we need to be expert at letting it all run across our minds eye, not absorbing too much... just feel the light patter of it's drizzle as the clouds pass. But there is good information in there too, worse luck. Don't want to miss that...

Either way, if you ask me it is governed by feelings. Life, is the answer or solution to the question I didn't quite pose. That is, feelings, they are what stirred me to begin this blog in the first place, under that overloading prompt. I hope it bears fruit in meditation, rectitude and / or pleasure, and that you have enjoyed this first installment.

Because it is up to you, in the end, some part of you, be it instinct or conscious, super-conscious, demiurge, to direct it's importance - information - because it might just be sent back to the beating heart and mind from that little metaphorical clerk of yours, there valiantly existing after all - a little memo marked:

'Important, Urgent, Me'.

thanks,
TBDASOAJ