Looks Like Hell With the Lid Off (Observation)

There is currently a pervasive notion that our society has sunk to the very lowest of the low. This is apparently because of reality television, celebrity culture and obesity taking over our streets.

While I do agree that we’ve had our embarrassments and that it doesn’t seem to be going away (Britney’s still procreating, there’s a new Hooter’s MasterCard, and both Teri Hatcher and Eva Longoria will soon be deemed “authors” along with “sexy,” “pretty,” and “way too thin”), there is a lot to be grateful for right now.

The “information overload” as it is now known is not simply an influx of useless data and trivial matters. Some of it is not only informative, but engaging.

Every day before I begin work, I read the headlines. Not just the daily newspaper headlines, but those of specialists – the internet, science, librarians, et al. I feel like I’ve learned more staying at home and working on the computer than I did all those years at the office. Some days, I feel overloaded, yes, but in a good way. Many times, the sexy man whom I love comes home and I unfurl a list of fascinating things I learned that day - poor guy!

This can be a problem for someone like me, though - a writer. Sure, there is a plethora of information from which to extract an idea and write about, but there is so much that it can be overwhelming.

This week, I met a fellow writer for lunch and we talked about having various notebooks filled and yet, not enough time to either flesh out or research the idea (4 notebooks of varying sizes lay before me, and that’s just what I have brought out here at the kitchen table). That’s what people forget about – it’s not just sitting down and writing about it off the top of your head. Unless you are lucky to have a column (and I am lucky enough to have a couple), your ideas must be flush with other content, not just your own opinion.

So, while everyone is complaining about their inboxes overflowing, having a nightstand full of books that they’ll never get to and generally moaning about the state of the world – 200 channels and nothing on – I continue to scour the globe for ideas and then write about them.

For me, this is the best time of our lives. Just look around and you’ll see. You may have to look past things like Dan Brown, So You Think You Can Dance? and this week’s top movies which included Nacho Libre, The Lake House, The Break-Up, and Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties, but television that has you leaving in the middle of conversations like The Sopranos, The Wire and Entourage; books that you email your friends about (see previous blog for titles) and a world of information that will have us writing about, discoursing on and arguing about for the rest of our days.

To me, it doesn’t get any better than that.

So, moan all you want to about the digression of society. I'll be over there, lapping up the information of all of the good stuff because really, there is a ton of good stuff.

I guess you just have to be willing to see it.