Information is food is information

Interesting perspective from JP Rangswami on the treating information as food, the speaker draws comparisons between the way information has been cultivated in todays world and the agricultural revolution, and how the patterns are the same. He talks about how the issue is never in production, but rather in consumption, and the need to curtail our information diets into a kind of healthy eating plan.

Studies by Leslie Aiello have suggested that nervous tissue (brain) and digestive tissue are expensive tissues, as in they cost a lot in upkeep, and usually a balance has to be struck between the two; more digestive tissue is produced at the cost of less nervous tissue; so eating a lot costs your brain. For anyone who's experimented with fasting, you can observe this effect in realtime. after the initial fug of emotionally related food cravings, things start to appear crystal clear. Information, inspiration and being to ripple through your system and your capacity to synthesise it receives an electric amplification.

So what WOULD happen if you spent a supersize month watching fox news? Or even any news? Certainly the internet has opened up a plethora of informatory fast food resources you're pretty much plugged into every day, including a swamp of inane details about people's personal lives from social media (which you probably got to this article from, so, nicely navigated).

But It's something I consider when I'm digesting radio 6, after a great tune and interesting conversation - some kind of nutrient dense sound formation, gets interrupted by the news; somebody's done something terrible and somebody else is outraged. This isn't news, as in it's the equivalent of eating a pot noodle and a can of coke; a superficially compelling taste, but at a net negative, it takes more energy from you than it offers. It costs to carry around this kind of information in a brain structure that has limited capacity. If your hard drive is full of junk (which yours is, mostly from the past, with some speculative concern about the future) then it's functionality and agility is going to be compromised. And you wont be in the process of creating a life in the image of your ideals, but rather a life in the image of your habitual information consumption.

And its worth considering, (at least it has been for me lately) that you DO want to be involved in the process of creating a life in the image of your ideals. Why? Because it will be wonderful? Because you're a special snowflake and deserve the life you want? Well, maybe if you want. But much more motivating is that a sincere attempt at this, even without attainment, is the thing that saves you from bitterness, resentment, the hell of aimless existential chaos and your own psychopathy.

It's your responsibility actually to other people, as well as yourself to work at creating a life shaped in your ideals and set yourself up with everything you need to prevent yourself from the tyranny of your own psycho-biology, its hard to hold the burden bitterness and resentment without tipping over the edge into malevolence. And that's not a good place for anyone.

Makes sense.

As beings that are a giant fluid dynamism of perpetually synthesising information, you could also reverse this talk. Food is information. And food IS information. What you put in your mouth hole is rich in all kinds of information that then becomes part of the makeup of your being and this, as far as you're concerned, determines everything.

If you're eating cheap, synthesised, chemically disjointed and carelessly made, flavourful matter, this will become the quality of your thoughts, actions and experience. And good for you if this is your thing. It would be all to easy to make a victim of yourself here and berate poor you for placating the brutality of your daily existence by having one too many cupcakes. A life this complex requires a few crutches and a bit of numbness now and then. But if your orientation is not at least somewhere towards your own and others around you's betterment, then your life can quite easily be characterised by way more of the unbearable and needless suffering than is required.

Both Pi Villaraza and Thich Nhat Hanh have talked about the real deep soul healing beginning when you grow and eat your own food. To nurture and rear that which will become you. If what you're consuming is close to the earth, as been tended to with thought and care and undergone as little corruptive processing as possible, it stands to reason that the information in it is good, fresh, well formulated, nutrient dense, thoughtful and close to the source. If you want to feel a harmonic with the source, become things that are close to that source by eating them.

If we began to consider thinking, as something similar to eating, you might draw a moral to this story along the lines of; eat well, think mindfully, so everyone wins. Or just as my mum constantly advocates; eat fruit.

With any luck you enjoyed your meal.