Information Overdose

Paul Julius Reuter might be the first person to exploit the financial power of information but the importance of information was known to humans since time immemorial. I believe it should be put in the same league as that of food, shelter, clothes and sex. But unlike these, information is something which is good only in stipulated amount. Less information is fatal, so is excess information. One might argue, excess information can make money, well I feel that is not excess information, that comes well inside stipulated information zone. Excess information should be thought of something as you want to know but you shouldn't know.

I feel I should have been much more happy, if I was not polluted by vestigial information. While in school, I enjoyed studying all subjects, and I never bothered how others scored. Soon I was informed how others scored higher in maths, biology etc. so instead of enjoying the subject and learning, I started finding out shortcuts to solve maths problems, and mugging up biology. It didn't stop there. At almost every stage of life, the information of what others are doing directed my course of action. When I made it to IIT, the first thing I did was to figure out how many from my class in school made it along with me and I have to confess the joy of knowing that I was the only one from my class was much more than the joy of making it to the most prestigious engineering college in India. After IIT if I see myself as stand alone and weigh my pleasures in life, I shall be more than content but the desire for excess information led to me gather that I stand in the median deciles of salary of my graduation class, so despite the fact that I earn almost 3 times of most of my friends from not so exotic colleges, I am still unhappy just because I know half of my graduation class earns more than I do.

I have been in consistent pursuit of happiness, and the biggest trouble has been information, excess information. We are a over informed society, we keep in touch with almost all our peers, be they from school, college or workplace. Internet and social networking sites have only made it worst. I recently broke up and it was one way, (i.e. I did not want it to happen), so like every breakup the friends also part ways, my friends on my side, her friends on her side, and mutual friends have to either take sides or maintain a diplomatic stance. But I made one fatal mistake of keeping in touch with one mutual friend who knew little of diplomacy, she told me my ex got married. Now I would have done very well if I was not supplied with that information , but now that I was given that information, the desire for excess information kicked in and I went ahead and dug out every thing about my ex's new muse, only to make myself much more miserable by comparing myself with him. Looking back, I feel I would have been much more happier had I not known these developments.

Something similar happened when I was the mutual friend in one of my friend's breakup. The guy mailed me some pics of his new girlfriend, the girl however was very keen on knowing how is he doing in his post breakup life. I told the girl, "if you really want to get over it, don't try to figure out what he is doing in his life, help me help you", but we all know how seriously we take others' advice, that too unsolicited advice. She checked my computer and told me, "the new girl is not as beautiful as I am", I agreed, "yupp!",
"I am more beautiful, ain't I", I replied "do you care?", she was a bit confused "I guess, I do"
"why?"
She didn't have a reply for that, and I could see her visibly distressed for another couple of weeks. No one but her own curiosity to know unnecessary information added the gloom in her life.
I took CAT 2006, I scored decent but didn't get any calls, I was not that unhappy, until I called one of my old school pals she had made it to IIM L, I and K GD/PI list, I acted as if I was more than delighted to hear the news, but now the pain of my failing to make it to the list was exacerbated. I would have done much better in handling the failure had I not pursued the hunger for unnecessary information.

We all must have seen the classic, A few good men and the famous scene where Jack Nicholson replies to Tom Cruise's quest for truth as "You can't handle the truth", I think that is the case with most of us. Most of us buy sorrow by looking for information we want to know but we shouldn't know.

I am desperately trying to keep myself off the information pollution highway, with little or no result. When our forefathers said ignorance is a bliss they were not joking, we would have realised that only if we had taken the high school proverbs' chapter seriously.