Western culture has reached a level of material wealth greater than at any time in history. We include in this material wealth, wealth of information as well. Currently, at pinnacle of our ability to manipulate our environment and produce all things we need, and many that we don't, it's entirely possibly that many of our ills are arising as a result of our inability to handle this incredible glut of input, in all of its forms.

Prior to recent age, when resources and information were scarce and hard to come by, we would never think of turning either of these away. The arrival of this incredible abundance is relatively recent, in past 50 years or so, with refinement of industry and emergence of information age and Internet. It has come upon us so quickly that many of us haven't learned or prepared ourselves to handle this new level of abundance. If indeed it is possible to adapt and prepare ourselves for onslaught at all.

We haven't asked ourselves questions, "How much is enough?" "What do I value over everything else?" We just cannot say "no" to available "things" and information that meet our fancy. And, in some ways, we crave each new thing with hope that it will somehow set us free. Consequently, we are literally dying from over consumption in one form or another.

More than half US population is now considered "obese," while people are starving for renewal of "spirit" and "soul" in their lives and work. People are busier, have less time, and often feel overwhelmed, surrounded by "too much stuff" and stressed out under growing burden of "too much information."

Application

How do we cope with temptation to consume ourselves into oblivion? Our proposal is simple. We suggest two things. First, that you begin replacing habit of "accumulating" with practice of "assimilating." And second, that you make sure what you ingest in any form is of highest quality possible. Let's first quickly define these words:

Accumulate: To heap up in a mass; to pile up; to increase; to collect or bring together; to amass; as, to accumulate a sum of money.

Assimilate: To appropriate and transform or incorporate into substance of assimilating body; to absorb or appropriate, as nourishment; as food is assimilated and converted into organic tissue.

Proper assimilation and digestion of food, experience, and information will allow us to extract its full benefit and put it to good use. Whereas overstuffing ourselves, in any of these arenas will cause a buildup of unsightly fat, waste, stress, toxicity, confusion, unease, often fueling an unconscious compulsion for more. All of us know how much better we feel when we push ourselves away from table before we're full, and satisfied feeling we get when we give ourselves a little time for our systems to "assimilate" what we've taken in.

Unconscious compulsions for "more input" seldom satisfy our true needs. Nor will having piles of unread books and magazines ringing our desks reduce nagging sense that there is some piece of information that will really change everything for us.

Satisfaction comes from fully digesting and extracting fine nutrients from what we already have, and making choices for new input based on our true values and passions, not our casual likes and vague interests.

Saying yes to only what most serves our needs and resonates with our deepest sense of self, and our chosen mission will go a long way to lessen burden. So will focusing on what is important to ours and not someone else's sense of self.

How to Facilitate Assimilation

We like to think that racists are choosing to hang on to their bias because they don't know any better. Those of us who are educated--or who think--can overcome any bias through information and intention. Right?

Tell that to our brains.

A recent study done at Dartmouth College presents some interesting ideas about racism and brain. According to widely published results of this research, racism can actually cause stupidity. Even professors from esteemed universities like Stanford are quoted as saying such things as "Racism really does make people stupid."

Well, that makes for an interesting sound bite, but it's a bit misleading.

Here's what happened: white test subjects with a bias against black faces performed poorly on a cognitive skills test after being interviewed by an African American person. The more biased subjects were (based on their scores on Harvard implicit association test), worse they did.

What's fascinating about this study is that it is first to show through magnetic resonance imaging that there is a particular area of brain associated with efforts to say or do right thing. This "executive control" portion of brain showed increased activity during both implicit association test and interview.

Those who had scores indicating a greater bias showed most activity in their brains in this area as they struggled to refrain from making racist choices or offensive remarks. As this poor little section of brain was overloaded, subjects were temporarily unable to perform thinking tasks.

So, really, compelling notion here isn't simply that racism makes you stupid. It's that presence of someone about whom we feel a bias affects our ability to think. If you live in a fairly homogenous community, your bias--and "executive control" part of your brain--isn't really tested. However, if on a daily basis you interact with people toward whom you have a racial bias, your thinking becomes impaired, at least temporarily.