I’ve just finished a book entitled The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. I also copied and highlighted some key parts as I always do with books since I usually borrow them from the library stacks or interlibrary loans. Certain pages of the book spoke right to me and will certainly influence my near and far futures. And I think that from the last chapter mainly, the book will indirectly influence the way that I make decisions, big and small, and with that leave a lasting daily taste in my mouth: a taste of comfort in the overwhelming modern world of information and knowledge.

Here is an excerpt from the middle of the book [emphasis mine]:

“While students at many colleges are happy to discover a subject to study that not only do they enjoy but that will enable them to make a living, many of the students that I teach have multiple interests and capabilities. These students face the task of deciding on the one thing that they want to do more than anything else. Unconstrained by limitations of talent, the world is open to them.
 
Do they exult this opportunity? Not most of the ones I talk to. Instead, they agonize: Between making money and doing something of lasting social value. Between challenging their intellects and exercising their creative impulses. Between work that demands single-mindedness and work that will enable them to lead balanced lives. Between work they can do in a beautifully pastoral location and work that brings them to a bustling city. Between any work at all and further study.
 
With a decision as important as this, they struggle to find the reasons that make one choice stand out above all others.”
 
- The Paradox of Choice - Barry Schwartz

And well: that resounds into the past college years of my life like no other. I like to think of myself proficient in the modern age of time-wasting devices, loads of information, and deceptive items of value. Yet with all of the opportunity laid out before one’s self, we reach a state of bliss and un-motion. This is evidenced by looking back on this very day, a day for me of photographing in a cemetery with a rudimentary understanding of exposures and composition, having a delicious bowl of seafood Pho and wondering how I can make it, wandering about a craft store glaring at the pastels/fancy paper/technical drafting kits, watching a lecture about high performance computing, and finishing off the day by burning a fire model of a church (for research purposes of course).

While I am a big proponent of randomness and a wide range of inputs, I am also a succumber of the pleasures of random input and a productive intake of massive amounts of information. This leaves me feeling adrift in a sea of decisions, which leads to indecision. Luckily, the book that I just mentioned talks of some ideas during the closing chapter. Not solutions, but guides to help you walk across the sea of paralysis. Instead of always looking back and wondering, I just don’t think there is a use in pondering the fourth dimension. Unless, of course, you are also interested in philosophical exercises as one of your too-many hobbies.

Either tonight or tomorrow, I am going to pursue the action of writing a to learn list (see here). Whether or not this will help with the multitude of choice that has materialized in front of me for the past years; I don’t know. But I have a deep and comforting feeling that while it will not make a difference in happiness, it will certainly grow and satiate my soul; and so I share these thoughts with you.