I'm sure you've noticed, in little bits, that the world can be pretty intrusive these days. Every time I check my email, I have to pass the headlines for "Is Britney wearing a ring?" Every moment of radio time in the car fills my brain with someone else's creativity (in song form) or message (in ad form.) Every time I open my eyes, there is a billboard waiting to rush through my eyelids. We know the outcome of elections on a vote-by-vote announcement because we can't wait the three hours to just get a final count. But I am going to wrap this up into a single declaration: There is too much information in the world and we need to fight this. I love knowledge, but this isn't what's filling our lives. We're keeping our minds so busy with tv, radio, online newspapers, fun facts, celebrity trivia, ring tones, movie spoilers, polls, shopping, Top 40, technology one-upsmanship... that we don't have any mental resource left for our own creation. There's always someone else's voice in my head. I work in a design field where we deal with the flow of people through space. It used to be that a little old lady went to the x-ray lab. But now, that's not enough information... now we have to add details, expand definitions, include credit. Instead of worrying that the lady can find her lab, the committee worries that the lady won't know that it's the Janet A. and William C. Foster Center for Radiology and Radiological Testing. We're afraid to state the one necessary fact and then fall silent. We fear that one word will never be enough to fill the space, so we add more. I always thought that if I turned off the radio in the car, I was wasting valuable listening time. Now I turn it off and realize that my commute is now a chance to relax. Here's what we need to do. Allow yourself to have some empty space in your life. Don't click to learn what Ben and JLo are doing this week. Don't read the NY Times article about how Kerry isn't really as strong as it looks like if you spin the numbers *this way.* Don't use false words to cover up your insecurity, just be secure and strong in your statements. Don't try to change the world by making it more fractured or subdivided. Don't let The Press tell you that it's their right to stick a microphone in a widow's face because it's your right to know. Don't become so distracted by what you can know that you become another unfocused voice in a screaming crowd.