Information vs Process

One of the greatest changes that has taken place in recent times is that anyone who has access to an internet hookup also has access to more information than they could read in a lifetime... on any topic... from a million different points of view... some truth, some fabricated...

It is such a massive part of society now that we call this time we are living in 'the information age'.

Now I'm not saying information is a bad thing - I try to read and stay up-to-date in the areas that I'm concerned with - but I do believe that it impacts us negatively in (at least) two ways:

1. We may become paralysed by information overload. There is so much out there to read that one could potentially get stuck reading and never end-up doing, and ultimately, nobody ever became great at anything by just reading information about it. Nike says 'Just DO it' for a reason. You have to take action to actualize any information you take in, otherwise all you are is a person who provides interesting dinner conversation.

2. "Education has become too much about the 'what' and not enough about the 'how'" - Hal Galper (jazz musician and educator)
Since teachers now have so much information at their fingertips, it has become easy to spend all of a student's time telling them things about things, and thereby avoid ever showing them the process by which the information can be realized. Every education model that is untainted by modern technology is, at its core, a method of demonstration of skills that are to be imitated by the learner - this is also how trades are learned. In music, this is the approach of 'make it sound like this' (process), instead of the more popular 'use the C melodic minor scale to play over an F dominant chord to outline an F9#11 sound' (information).

If you think about it we actually need very little information in order to do most things required of us, but for every bit of necessary information we need a process by which we can use the information in a practical way. Don't allow yourself to become paralysed by the vastness of the information superhighway. Instead, make an effort to filter out all but the most important things, and spend the rest of your time exploring ways to internalise, and then practically externalise those important bits of information so as to better yourself, and your world... and never be afraid to ask the question 'HOW?'.