Living in this information age, I often wonder — how much information does a man really require? Leo Tolstoy wrote a famous short story, How Much Land Does a Man Need?, where the protagonist, in his lust for land, loses everything — including his life. By the end of the story, we learn the answer to the question in the story's title — six feet, just enough to bury the protagonist. In the quest for more information, have I lost the plot?
In spite of all the strides being made by LLMs and AI, I still want my future self to be more informed, more knowledgeable, and wiser. In the name of achieving that future self, I frequently find myself consuming information and knowledge in different forms — articles, books, blogs, documentaries, movies, podcasts, series, videos, etc — at a furious pace. I comfort myself with the fact that I’m not consuming social media*, but I’m just as guilty of opening a browser window for something specific, only to emerge 45 minutes later from an internet rabbit hole I never intended to enter.
In the last couple of years, I observed four new distinct behaviours that my past self did not really possess. And anecdotally, I could easily connect these new behaviours to chasing more and more information.
1. I’ve lost my bias toward action.
I didn't know it was a thing, but I had started searching for the "perfect" piece of information. When Google can throw up so many options, it also creates the illusion that there must be some blog, video, article, or book out there that would solve the problem you are facing once and for all. Of late, even pertinent and valid responses to my queries seem deficient and incomplete. But rather than build over the information I have received to make progress towards solving my problem at hand, I double down on the search itself.
2. I’ve stopped listening to myself.
I’m quick to say I don’t know when I really don’t — but I do know a few things. I have decent judgment, a fair understanding of the world, and a good head on my shoulders. But each day, I find myself doubting my own insights. What started as a healthy humility — knowing that ideas aren’t unique and someone else may have thought of them first — has turned into a liability. I now often Google my own ideas and insights to find out who’s already said them, needing external validation to legitimise my own thoughts. I listen to myself less and less. And instead of building things, I’m stuck typing away in a search bar.
3. I’ve grown weary of recommendations.
One of my favourite things is to discover recommendations of things to read (or watch) from new people I meet or discover online. In my experience, modern day recommendation engines — Amazon's or Netflix's — are not great at introducing one to novel items to consume. Strangers from different walks of life have often rocked my worldview with their suggestions. Left to recommendation engines or my own tastes, I would have never discovered how smart Marilyn Manson is (The Long Hard Road Out of Hell), or figured out that the ability to loiter in a city could be used an indicator to measure equality among the sexes (Why Loiter?: Women and Risks on Mumbai Streets), or come across the incredibly funny novel involving a professor on the autism spectrum (The Rosie Project), or how Lockheed Martin built the SR-71 Blackbird spy-plane, and the stealth fighter among many other secret projects (Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed)! But lately, I don’t ask. I already feel overwhelmed by the things I’ve already bookmarked. Over time, I became indiscriminate with recommendations in my hunger for more — and now I fear the very behaviour that once enriched my life.
4. I've lost some control over my information consumption.
Without a doubt, the internet has introduced me to so many new voices and experts who have genuinely expanded my mind. Serendipity seemed to be one of the most exciting features of these discoveries. But access to these voices and experts came with some request for subscription or contact information, where I innocently gave permission to be bombarded with more information. I didn't think much of it until it became too much. Serendipity gave way to the regular rhythm of newsletters, delivered on someone else’s schedule, not mine. Rather than appreciate the ease with which I was probably learning things, I was getting upset by the loss of control I felt. I also faced the constant feeling of being behind. Life and work already felt like a never-ending to-do list, and now the act of learning, which brought me so much joy, also felt like a race to catch up with all the insights in all my inboxes.
I may not be buried under six feet of earth like Tolstoy’s protagonist, but I do feel buried — under unread tabs, newsletters, and saved podcasts. And that feels like a kind of loss too. I have come to believe these four behaviours are my personal warning signs. I still don’t know how much information I truly “need,” but I’m increasingly convinced: this blind lust for information is feels just as dangerous as a lust for land.
Derek Sivers nailed it when he said: If more information was the answer, then we'd all be billionaires with perfect abs.
*deep down, I know that being off those platforms is the only way to keep me from doom scrolling