Writing the blog about "What Not to Say" (March 27, 2011) reminded me of a book I read almost thirty years ago, Megatrends, by John Naisbitt. He described the origins of the American intelligence community in World War II. It was decided that the best way to get a sense of what was going on inside Germany during the war was to subscribe to the local newspapers around Germany. Information about the strain that the war was bringing to the German people, industry and economy began to show up in these newspapers, even though details of production and transportation were censored out. American intelligence tracked local stories about factory openings and closings, train arrivals, departures and delays, and names of local soldiers killed in action. Over time, one could add up these local listings and get an idea of the German economy, the effectiveness of allied bombings, the rate of German casualties and whether the German war effort was improving or deteriorating. This method proved so effective, they began to do the same with Japanese newspapers.

This method remains a major source of information about other countries today for the Central Intelligence Agency and other entities, although the internet is rapidly becoming the most important source of secret information. Why did and does the local newspaper method work so well? Because the traditional local newspaper is a closed system. The size of the "news hole," the portion of the paper devoted to news rather than advertising, does not change significantly over time. So articles are rated in terms of interest and importance, the biggest story is at the top of page one and the least-important story is buried somewhere deep inside. In addition, each article is written so that paragraphs flow in descending importance, from the first to the last. So if a hot, front-page story comes in after the "news hole" has been largely set, an editor can either drop the bottom-ranked story, or cut the last paragraph or two out of all the earlier stories, to make room for the breaking news. In a closed system, you cannot add unless you subtract. One way or the other, you are forced to choose.

Similarly, societies are forced to choose what they will pay attention to. They add new preoccupations and forget old ones. Intelligence agencies can see where a society is at without polls by analyzing what social concerns are attracting attention and which are fading. This is different from the internet, which has an almost infinite capacity to provide space for ideas and perspectives, regardless of whether they are worth attention. Societies as a whole can prioritize only so many things at one time.

In this sense societies are like individuals. You and I can only pay attention to so many ideas and concerns at one time. The limited nature of individual time and attention mean we are like a closed system. If new problems and concerns come into your life, some existing ones are given up, no matter how important they may have seemed at one time. If you add new activities to your life, others will be neglected. You can choose which to neglect or life will make the choice for you. That is a reason many people struggle with a devotional life. It keeps getting crowded out of their focus and attention by life. Unless you "front page" your walk with God, it will have difficulty surviving information overload.

When I read Megatrends I was just beginning my PhD program (1981-1987). I realized at the time that I was adding something huge into my life that could crowd out everything else that was important to me, such as family, devotions, exercise, etc. I realized that if I did not make some difficult choices, life would make those choices for me and I would probably be sorry about the outcome. If I didn’t consciously choose to drop some things from my life, I was heading for a major wreck in the things that mattered most. Up until that time there were two areas of my life in which I had exhibited above-average talent; music (playing the organ and singing in choirs) and Bible study/spiritual work. I realized that if I wanted to do something truly special in this world, I could probably not succeed at both. I had to make a choice or live with mediocrity. So I deliberately chose to eliminate musical performance from my life, painful though that was to me at the time and to many of you as you read. To this day, I don’t sit down at the keyboard in my home, even though I was quite skilled at one time, and I don’t join choirs, even for one-shot occasions. It would simply take the place of things that are more important to me now. In 1981 I also made the decision to stop watching sports, which took up a large amount of "fun time." To this day, we don’t have television reception at our house, so watching sports happens today only on special occasions when friends invite me in for the Super Bowl or an Olympic event or two.

If you are visiting this site, I trust you probably think I made the right decision, to focus my life on the one thing I considered most important. And I have no regrets. I made the choice, life didn’t make it for me. I still love music and listen whenever I can, but I don’t let it run my life. I have been far from a perfect husband and father, but I can imagine the wreck my parenting would have become if I had tried to add sports and music to all the travel, study and writing obligations I have today. The "news hole" concept came at just the right time to confirm decisions I had already made and keep me over the long term from losing my focus in life.

What about you? What are the things that matter the most to you? What are you choosing to do? What is life choosing for you? This is the first day of whatever you will become some day.