Meditations for Mortals - week one, day five
Meditations for Mortals (by Oliver Burkeman): A 4 week/28 day series with dailyish posts about the book
Week one - facing the facts of finitude
DAY FIVE
Too much information
On the art of reading and not reading
On day five, Burkeman brings me back to one of my favorite songs by my favorite band in middle and high school: The Police. It’s music time, sing along!
Too much information running through my brain
Too much information driving me insane
Too much information running through my brain
Too much information driving me insane
STOP!
What fantastic music — still. But back to day five. This will be brief because today I’ve been busy writing duets and lost a bit of time. I wanted to stay with inspiration, and I was able to write two this morning, using two modes that have been giving me trouble: Lydian and Mixolydian. For Lydian I looked online to get ideas and learned that John Williams had used Lydian for the famous bicycle scene in E.T. when they are flying by the moon, and that was the image I needed! So “E.T. and Elliott rides again” was born!
And for Mixolydian I was inspired by a new commission I’m doing with composer Harriet Steinke from Detroit —her lovely “Rituals” which I’m playing this year. There is one in 7/8 that has been an earworm in my head, so I decided to listen to it and use some rhythmic ideas loosely for “Bright Stars.”
Ok I’m getting off track today. But there’s a connection. I think using information in this way, as it is passing by, or calling on us in some way can be a good way to explain Burkeman’s first piece of advice about information —treat it like a river, not a bucket.
That is to say: think of (information)…as a stream that flows past you, from which you get to pick a few choice items, here and there, without feeling guilty for letting all the others float by.
His second piece of advice is not to stockpile knowledge. (Hahaha he says like a squirrel hoarding nuts, some people take notes on everything they read…I do think everyone benefits from thinking how to best organize the information that is in their life or that is important to them).
But he says:
Most of the long-term benefits of reading arise not from facts you insert into your brain, but from the ways in which reading changes you, by shaping your sensibility, from which good work and good ideas later flow.
The third rule is to remember that “consuming information is a present-moment activity, like everything else.”
He adds:
It’s not merely that a fixation on retaining facts is a poor way to reap the benefits of reading. It’s also that any focus on ‘reaping the benefits’ risks obscuring the truth that a meaningful life, in the end, has to involve at least some activities we love doing for themselves, here and now. So you needn’t always choose to read what’s most edifying, or professionally useful, or most enthusastically endorsed by the arbiters of culture.
He finishes the chapter saying to read for the sake of being alive, take it in while you are breathing and living at this moment.
And at this moment, I’m digging “Too Much Information” from The Police on repeat.
Thoughts?
What do you think about the three suggestions from Burkeman?
Is there any way you relate to information that you want to alter?
Are you a fan of The Police? :)
