I’ve been reading several things lately about the surfeit of information available, which consequently causes people to be dabblers or skimmers without any sense of surety. One book suggests that the true future leaders will not be those who know the pertinent facts but rather know where to find them.

When I talk to the Apple help guys about some tech problem that has me flummoxed they try steps toward a solution until they find something that works. I inevitably ask once it’s all solved “but how did that problem happen in the first place?” I’m looking for one action that caused one problem. I want to reflect on cause and effect so that I can understand better. They of course have no clue — there’s any number of ways both to get into and apparently out of a problem. We live in quantum times not linear times and my mind is still adjusting. But the implications are fascinating. One such implication is that every move, even of minute factors, such as the flap of a butterfly wing has consequence on the entire system of organisms that may or may not be measured, yet is sure. Looking for surety? Every move made is part of a complex whole that is constantly in flux, constantly has potential. It seems that while living in this kind of quantum whole, that poetry reaches and soothes our finitely glutted senses far better than any instruction manual can. And some visual art is poetry. There is something that captures my attention with a gestural stroke far better than a detailed drawing. There is a wonder and a surprising beauty with how ink lays down on surface that draws me into the journey. I am no longer after perfection. I am after participating in the wonder, and wonder leads me to the answers my soul has long craved. If on the other hand I just manage life as an information arbiter, I have resorted to being only a button pusher, a mouse clicker; I am just skimming through. There is a poverty in this kind of thin external living that is soul deadening. I will never know all I need to know, and the illusion that I ever could is just as damning as the alternative. But wonder, child-like, is the beginning of something else.