Elf Sternberg

One of the points I wanted to make (and failed to) is that there comes a point in the life of every creative where they feel like they're fraying or leaking, where the circle feels so full that it's overflowing and too much is getting lost. There are moments of anguish in every creative's life where the world is pouring so much smart stuff into you that you can't process it all and you have to accept that the rest will just pour over you and across the floor and a lot of it will flow away from you without leaving any mark.

Human beings aren't made for that: I would argue that until the start of the 19th century or so it was impossible for one human being to have too much information. Now, it's possible not only to have too much information, but to feel that there's too much knowledge that will never get even a flicker of thought, even through you would be fully willing, capable, even ecstatic to consider it if you had the time and headaround for it. So "anguish" of a kind the Buddha could never have understood is a good term for it.

I had this insight the other day when I walked into a comic book store and saw all the new Wolverine stuff on the shelves. Once upon a time, I would have been desperate to collect it all and know the story. I sighed and put back the copies of Origins and X-23 (premise: cute as a button goth teenage highschool chick with both the Wolverine adaptation and the adamantium modifications), knowing I didn't have time for them, and writing, and studying languages, and hacking code, and reading trashy porn, Kushiel's Scion, and Curse of Chalion and the rest of my "to read" stack.