Beyond Information

I remember a long time ago – perhaps forty year or so - thinking that all the information I had to deal with in my job was rather challenging.  Well, little did I know – perhaps in my naivety – that what lay ahead for everyone was an overwhelming flood of information.  That seems to be what we have now – so much information available at our fingertips – literally with a click of a mouse (if you still use are old fashioned enough to use one), that, if we are so inclined or trapped, we can spend all day every day falling down one rabbit hole after another on social media in a never-ending desire for more information.  At least Alice only had one rabbit hole to fall into. 

Today, we seem to be consumed with the search for more information and usually we only want to look for information to affirm and confirm what we already believe.  The algorithms on the various social media platforms seem to ensure this will happen or at least make it difficult to avoid.   The question we have to face today is, is there such a thing as too much information?  The answer is probably self evident – of course there is! (I don’t use exclamation points very often but I think this is an occasion to use one).

I realize my wording has been rather convoluted and meandering but perhaps that reflects the nature of the subject and is an example of more of something not always being better. 

So, given that we are faced with an epidemic of information of all kinds – good and bad, relevant and irrelevant – how can we deal with it?  I believe the answer lies first in the realization about what information does.  I was helped in gaining an understanding about the nature of information in one of Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations this past week, “Mere information tends to break things apart into competing ideologies.” 

For me, this summed up what is so evident today in the dominance of social media and the availability of information in the cloud of computing.  As I write that, I realize how that phrase, cloud computing, is so unintentionally revealing about its nature.  Instead of the cloud of knowing, it is the ‘cloud of unknowing’ (with apologies to the unknown author of the classic in mystical writing).  I guess we could all join in with the cry of TMI, TMI – too much information.

The idea that mere information breaks things apart, really gets to the essence of the problem.  We need to work to bring things together and not engage in things that separate us.  What we need is not more information; what we need desperately, is to find wisdom.   That is not an easy thing- true wisdom is hard to find and perhaps is not always easy to recognize.  However, that statement of Rohr’s is an example of wisdom, “Mere information tends to break things apart into competing ideologies.”  Here is the complete quote which addresses one way in which we can find wisdom

Mere information tends to break things apart into competing ideologies. Wisdom received through contemplative seeing puts things back together again. At the CAC (Center for Action and Contemplation), we have found that the most radical, political, and effective thing we can do for the world and the church is to teach contemplation: a way of seeing beyond the surface of things that moves people toward credible action.  

Contemplation is, unfortunately, not something which is natural or easy to people, especially these days when we are distracted and obsessed by all that information.  However, that recognition is a place to start. 

May you be blessed with the gift of contemplation on your journey.