Getting around to the housework

A pile of proverbial dishes are stacked up in a sink. Some laundry and halfway sorted mail is nearby. It is the never ending realization of how much information, knowledge, and wisdom I have yet to process, seek out, and give attention to. My list of books to read and movies to watch is always growing, and I want to, if I can, keep a balance of sorts between the old and the new, which involves knowing what is new. I am only really pretending to know much of value about politics, world affairs, and current social issues. I've been meaning to do something about that for a couple years now. It would be easier--at least less intimidating--if life was more simple, and maybe it is, but I haven't yet learned how to categorize many ideas quickly enough to keep any kind of simplicity. There are also the people, affairs, and issues of my immediate context to understand better. People have stories and perspectives that go beyond mine, and that takes a kind of knowing. Interactions and structures sometimes call for judgment or response--again, more to understand. I believe all this is enough to keep me busy for long enough. There are plenty more piles of knowing to get around to as well. When I was in high school I began to wonder what it would be like to live in a time before global communication. Most peasants in the middle ages never ( I don't think) left the community they lived in. If great artists were painting pictures, what was that to them? Their world was the people they saw day to day, the lord who owned their land, their work to cultivate the land, and the weather that effected their farming. What a vastly different life that would be. I would not, because of that, make any condemnation of the current culture. I try very much to avoid blanket statements about culture, as they usually have nothing to do with understanding it or communicating within it. I think we are all called to work within the culture we find ourselves. I find it comforting, all the same, to know that my mastery of knowing the worlds of information there is to know remains independent of my identity as a person. The peasants were not of more or less value to God than I for the different cultures we live, or lived, in. That raises the question of what is worth knowing, and what can be set aside unlearned. Alas, I'm afraid that, too, is another pile of things to know. I'll try to get around to dealing with that sometime soon. For now, however, I will go back to the pile of class assigned reading which has some weigh of immediate necessity above other things for the time being.