Here’s a quotation that sums up the unimportance of most information that tries to win our time and attention, suggesting that we necessarily must know it to be informed, important persons.
“The pursuit of relevance thus becomes a prime source of superficiality, anxiety, and burn-out. (‘Hell,’ it has been said, ‘will be full of newspapers with a fresh edition every thirty seconds, so that no one will ever feel caught up.’)”
- Os Guinness, Dining with the Devil: The Megachurch Movement Flirts with Modernity, p. 63, 1993
If we lived like this information is true, what would be the result? To be sure, we’d write fewer books, but the ones we’d write would be much more profound, beautifully written, and eternally relevant. And, we would read old books, learn to think well and deeply, and shift our valuation paradigm to promoting what lasts beyond the grave. The thirst for information is no longer properly bounded by a framework of wisdom, which was a steady diet of old literature where people made moral decisions and the authors intended for the readers to think and learn about life through the work and the righteous and unrighteous actions of characters – to do likewise or to avoid. It was as Philip Sidney described it in his Defense of Poesy, “teaching by delighting” with story. It’s the parable approach. Instead, new information says everything is relevant to every moment. And, if you aren’t caught up, you’re left behind. But, that’s just a deception to keep us from ever hearing the truth of what really matters and keeping our gazes fixed upon it.
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