Carrying on thinking about busyness, with some useful thoughts emerging. I’ve been more conscious about “feeling the texture of lists” – whether that’s content backlogs, to-do lists, or anything else.
In general, one thing defines an unhelpful list: a lack of control (or the lack of feeling of control). From this single sense spirals a deathloop. Or, perhaps, this lack of sense – no structure, no particular thread to hold it all together. Things get added to create something as close to “stuffdust” as possible. It is a collection, but this is far as the activity goes – and without structure or sense, there can be no starting or ending point.
The antidote to this is curation, or the Art of Being Picky. Not simply to sort and filter, but to assemble something coherent – once we have cohesion, we can restore some sense and sanity. We understand what it is we’re here for.
Starts and ends are how we see the world – from the narrative of a short story no longer than a paragraph, to the finishes and beginnings that define the year loops. We are not made to be everlasting, never-ending. We need initiation as well as closure.
Curation is getting harder though. Cleaning out some tabs, I came across this image (via the sanity-restoring fixthenews.com) showing how we feel about news in general:
Each screen opens a portal into our awareness. We believe we stare into the screen, but in reality the opposite is true – a device is a way to reach us, not the other way around. The dramatic push of AI tools and services into the palm of our hand highlights how much of an attachment we’ve become. Curation is getting near-impossible – firstly because content and updates are increasingly there, and secondly because we’re losing the skill and the art of choice. Choice about our own attention and focus.
Even AI summaries and filters, intending to solve this problem, do nothing for restoring the soul of our choices. To curate is to rebel. To select is to create.
But we are creating something greater than what we consume. We are creating the act of existence.
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