COLUMN: Tension in the Information Age

By Tobin Barnes
I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a little overwhelmed lately.

Sometimes it’s hard to breathe. Maybe I should start carrying around a brown-paper sack. Do some ventilating. Gotta do something.

You see, my plate is full and I had no intention of filling it. It’s given me concerns. And who wants those?

Not me. That wasn’t my plan.

And it’s all because of information. It’s at my fingertips. Boot up my computer and it’s right there, any time of the day. Drives me nuts. But I can’t help myself.

Being well informed has gotten in the way of a happy life. Made everything too mental. I know way too much about a lot of random things and that’s not good.

Allow me to give you an example. Like my health. I get these emails from RealAge.com, a fine reputable organization, I’m sure. At first, when I signed up for the emails, I thought they’d be a good idea. I’d just had hip surgery, so I wanted to be more health conscious. Avoid stuff that would get me back into the hospital as I aged.

But it’s not health conscious, I’ve discovered, so much as health paranoid.

Deep down I know all these health tips they send are good for me, but it’s like inviting a nagging mother-in-law into your life (not that I know what that’s like, but I’ve heard stories). Almost every day I get these nasty nag notes. They tell me all kinds of irritatingly healthy things, like I should lose weight. I read that and I’m thinking, “Okay, five to ten pounds.” My wife gets wind of this, jumps on the band wagon, and starts thinking thirty.
I soon realize it’s a catch-22.

I’ll be miserable if I lose the weight because I’ll be eating less and exercising more, and heck, that’s no fun no matter how cheery they make it sound. You can’t just put lipstick on a pig and call it pretty.

But then I’ll probably be even more miserable if I don’t lose the weight. We’re talking major league, on-going guilt trip: relentless self-fed negative impressions conspiring to attack my self-esteem--impressions like “lazy slob,” to name one.

Who needs it in these already trying times? Can’t we just get along? I’m talking to you, RealAge.

And if it’s not diet and exercise they’re needling me about, they’re bugging me with emails about vitamins.

First it was my mother. Now it’s the health police.

I’m already taking vitamins until the cows come home, and then every week or so, another RealAge email comes up with a new one.

It’s a job taking all those vitamins every morning: rattling around in the cupboard, taking off caps, putting them back on, drinking the pills down with water, then having to hit the can soon after because of all the hydration. Give me a break!

All this pill popping, just to get a 40% less chance of contracting this, that, or the other thing.

And that reminds me. How about these medical percentages they’re always coming up with. What’s up with that? Who’s the 40% and who’s the 60%. It’s like you’re sitting at a blackjack table in Vegas. They tell you to play the percentages. Things is, people lose their shirts playing the percentages.

And even if the RealAge advice is working, it’s like good old Redd Foxx used to say, “Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing.”

See? You can’t win when you’ve got too much information. No truer words than “Ignorance is bliss.”

But that bliss is long gone for me. I’ve become an information junkie. I get the shakes when I’m not aware of the latest minutia. I’m convinced I need it. Like when I ran across this gem: Periodically polish your lawn furniture with car wax to keep it looking new.

Yeah, car wax.

And I’m sitting there thinking, “Hmmm...maybe I should.”