Take the human brain. Go ahead, take it. It's only a few pounds, and you can hold it right in your hand. But a funny thing happened on the way to becoming homo sapient. Our brains expanded a few centimeters, but our worlds expanded a few universes. Now, a hundred million years later, we're expecting much the same brain to process a hundred billion additional sight-and-sound bites.
Another way of saying if going to bed right after the 10 o'clock news leaves you a rattling wreck, you're not alone!
In smaller simpler times, the brain was expected to report the physical dangers to you within that 50-miles-radius in which you lived most of your life. Tough enough. But now -- now with daily newspapers, 24/7 network & cable news, and worldwide social-media -- you will know, whether you want to or not, virtually everything that's happening to everyone everywhere.
In just the last 24-hour news cycle: The beatification of a Pope, the assassination of a terrorist, the nearing capitulation of a half-dozen tyrants, not to mention gang-bangers in the local schoolyard, corruption in the city government, drug wars at the Mexican border, disasters in Tornado Alley, nuclear threats from Japan, and the Hadron Collider in Geneva on the brink of discovering the secrets to to cosmos. Not to mention a slew of new warnings about new symptoms about new diseases you never knew existed.
The cosmos...? Hell, I can't figure out how to make my coffee-maker work or to understand my grandchildren. Why do I have to fathom the cosmos and all the life-forms in it? At least not until after breakfast.
Information is power...but distinguishing what you need to know is wisdom...and accepting that limit is serenity. Go ahead, check it out for yourself. It's in every religion's holy books. And they're in every library. Where at least they don't scream it at you...
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