There's a reason smoke is coming out of my ears. I didn't say it was a good reason!

Do you ever feel like we live in an age where we literally know too much? It's called information overload and that's what's cooking inside my noodle on this Thursday, April 29, 2010. The internet and cable news, talk radio, the 24 hour up to the minute or up to the second now of everything, anything, something, all the time broadcasting its intrusion into our space has a remarkable influence and impact on our lives, but the question remains, for good or bad? I like to be informed but how that becomes defined could easily cause one to go way over the top in trying to stay up on every detail that is out there. I am sometimes amazed at myself in how much I know something about. I'm not talking here about skill knowledge, but when someone mentions almost anything, I've either read about it, heard about it, or it somehow got itself into my stream of consciousness. This means I can find myself contributing to conversations about some of the most meaningless details of the most useless topics ever known to humanity. For me, this may come from my concentration on headlines of all sorts. I can pretty well get the lay of the land from the four corners of the earth by logging on and quick hitting a dozen websites that feature headlines. I mean what good does it do to know there are enough gang members in Los Angeles alone to populate a city the size of Alexandria, Louisiana?

I actually know a few people who pay very little attention to trying to keep up and I am usually amazed at even the big stories they tend to know very little if anything about. What is wrong with them? How can they seem to get along so well? They don't even know any of the details about the insurgency and conflicts that continue to plague the Sudan. They are unaware of how China may ease up on their one child policy. They also find little time to focus on the current driver feuds going on in the NASCAR world. For the life of me I can't figure out why they don't even care how many points Labron James scored in the playoff game last night. I really do feel sorry for them. And, it's pretty much useless to tell them about the time I emailed a radio station in Brisbane, Australia because when listening to their broadcast on the internet I heard them make a glaring error in something they said about the Crocodile Hunter series running here in the states. Pitiful. These people who know so very little about what is going on, they seem so happy. Why they don't even pay attention enough to know how unhappy they are. Wow!

I know we all at times have a fear about not knowing enough. This especially happens as we learn on a new job. But it really can become an obsession whenever it has to do with the instantaneous junk that we seem not to be able to live without that occupies so much of our time. I do have to discipline myself because keeping up with all of what becomes tomorrow's trivia most certainly can interfere with time spent with God and especially in His word. I could certainly do more to follow the Apostle Paul's admonition: "Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things." (Philippians 4:8) That's it for today, I have to run because I believe there's a congressional hearing coming on CSPAN that I can stream on my computer and I wouldn't want to miss it. Just joking but I will check the CSPAN schedule to be sure since you mentioned it. Have a blessed day and remember to remember to spend time with God. Amen. .......More later.