He that hath many irons in the fire, some of them will cool

The scourge of the Internet Age is information overload.

We all have too many irons in the fire and that fire sometimes seems to be your brain. Everyone wants your attention trying to sell you a product or an idea and the more information you have the more confusing it gets.

The only answer is to find a few trusty sources and shut out the rest. The problem is how do you find the best sources. Advice from a friend? Trial and error? Follow the crowd? Like gold mining you have to go through a lot of grit to get to pay dirt.

When confronted with a pile of possibilities, sometimes the best thing is to make a priority list and work through it or just pick one and get it done. This will boost your morale and make you keener for the next challenge.

A deluge of words and a drop of sense

This saying could have been written for politicians.

How much do we take away from the average conversation, political address, or even the news? Often not a lot. The modern world is filled with information - so much so that we can't cope.

At one time there were polymaths - people who tried to master all known subjects - but that age is long gone. Today we need coping strategies to filter out all the irrelevant stuff. But how do you know it is irrelevant until you have read it? If you read too much how can you retain it?

Speed reading is one useful technique where you learn to skim, picking out only the really important bits. You need to grasp some idea of what knowledge should you seek. Having wise old friends to point the way is good.

Hacking a path through this knowledge jungle to find the treasure requires a goal, planning, team work, tools, lots of preparation, and a mind set ever ready for the unexpected. You might have a map of sorts or just be winging it but the temples of knowledge contain many fair jewels for those who find their way there.


The human race has one really effective weapon and that is laughter. - Mark Twain. This book will arm you:
700 Limericks & How to Write Them by William Clark

The fish will soon be caught that nibbles at every bait

This saying could have been made for the Internet Age when our inboxes are filled with emails offering goods or services. Information overload is the downside of the technological revolution that brought the PC to our desktops. How to deal with masses of emails, and other information, overloading the mind and causing inertia is a problem.

A useful strategy is to form clear goals and delete everything irrelevant, no matter how interesting it might be. To compulsive information junkies this is not easy but wasting time reading immaterial stuff is not wise.

The advent of services like Twitter allows a quick glance to let you know what should be followed and what to avoid. No doubt, as time progresses, clever people will come up with ways to streamline and organise our information requirements. Perhaps a robot that thinks for us!



Escape from everyday reality with this verse adventure tale from James Hogg abridged by William Clark.
Queen Hynde of Berigonium, Scotland by James Hogg & William Clark

One head cannot hold all wisdom

In this day and age of information overload this probably seems very obvious; not even the mighty Google can manage it.

This proverb seems like a variant of: two heads are wiser than one. Humans are designed to work in groups with a leader who co-ordinates and directs. This makes the group stronger and more effective than a loose bunch of enthusiasts who pull in different directions and end up quarrelling.

We live in a time of increasing specialisation where individuals know a great deal about ever-narrowing fields of study. This is where proverbs can be particularly valuable as they attempt to condense much experience and knowledge into a short pithy statement.

As William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, put it: "The Wisdom of Nations lies in their Proverbs, which are brief and pithy. Collect and learn them… They are notable measures and directions for human life. You have Much in Little; they save time and speaking, and on occasion may be the fullest and safest answers."