There just aren't enough hours in the day.
I've always had an active mind, even when I was a toddler. My family would always tell me and friends that I'd been a precocious, constantly active child. I'm sure nowadays I'd be classified with high-end hyperactivity, Attention Deficit Disorder and whatever other maladies we like to tag modern children with these days.
As I grew up, it became clear to me that I was obsessed with the concept of learning. I wanted to assimilate as much information in a given day as I possibly could through whatever means necessary. If I could read about it in a book, I would devour it, then try to commit it to memory as fast as possible. If I had to learn it through physical repetition, I would do it over and and over until I was content that I'd gotten it right.
I was a small but potent engine of osmosis and assimilation as I realized I wanted to learn about everything. It wasn't a matter of being smarter than the next kid and I bristle at the notion of it being all about my ego. Contrary to popular belief, I really don't have all that much of one to be honest, and my ego is much more an anti-ego given its profound ability to point out the negative aspects of myself.
It was just a matter of satisfying my extreme curiosity and my almost manic need to just experience as much as possible first-hand.
The big issue, though, is when that mania gets going, my brain just doesn't want to stop processing the incoming data. While there is a benefit in that wanting to stay active in a particular stream of consciousness, there is also a danger for such a hungry mind too.
There's only 24 hours in the day, which means at some point you need to stop, rest, and recharge the cerebral batteries. Yet, for reasons that I don't really understand, 24 hours just isn't enough time for my day.
I realize this whenever I'm sitting at work, or at home, and I don't feel like I'm doing anything I'm considering "productive." Yes, I may be writing a story for the paper, or conducting an interview, or washing my dishes, or researching and writing out parts of the book I'm working on, or even sleeping. There's nothing wrong with doing those things, but somewhere in the back of my mind, exists a construct which is always pointing out that I'm running out of time in the day and I should be doing something else.
I should be exercising, reading a new book, traveling, taking photographs, talking with friends, learning something I haven't learned before or changing a perspective which has become calcified and stale in my mind.
This realization has returned to the fore of my consciousness in the last couple of weeks as I was once again made aware of how absolutely fantastical the age in which we live has become. I used to joke with my friends that, "Everything we need to learn can now be found on YouTube." and as I had just bought a very cheap guitar for the process of finally learning the instrument, I would prove my point by learning it not from another person, but by going online and doing so there.
Well, sadly my guitar is sitting the bag I bought for it and I haven't picked it up in some time because I have yet to find a YouTube channel with lessons that work for me. However, earlier this week, I discovered something much more potentially profound in TEDTalks.
TEDTalks, for those unaware, are a series of short lectures from a diverse collection of some of the more prominent thinkers across all areas of global culture. They're updated nearly every day and at this point, there's more than 1,000 of them online, and I am completely hooked on them.
At the same time, I've also rehabilitated the part of my brain that has always fed off the act of reading, so now I can pick up a book and not only get through it, but I can also take considerable enjoyment from each new one I open up. Combine that with my desire to finally get my own book moving and start discovering more and more of both what's out in the world and what exists in myself, and I'm usually climbing into bed at night wondering if I can squeeze a few more minutes out of the day to do just a little bit more that I hadn't done the day before.
It's both an exhilarating and disconcerting place to find myself again, however, because of the simple and inescapable truth.
There just isn't enough time in the day to fit it all in. Not yet, at least.
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