{"id":207,"date":"2009-02-19T19:17:32","date_gmt":"2009-02-20T00:17:32","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-02-02T00:46:15","modified_gmt":"2011-02-02T05:46:15","slug":"distractability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/?p=207","title":{"rendered":"Distractability"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lately I’ve been quite distractable. I partly blame a rescaled sense of urgency from what I tried (and, surprisingly, succeeded) to take on last semester, I partly blame my every-other day class schedule. The fact of the matter is, the problem is nothing new; because I am curious, I tend to find the things I am exposed to interesting, and, as a result, follow up on them far more than I really have time for.
\nEugen Roth<\/a> (1897-1976) wrote a wonderful passage on this problem in Ein Mensch<\/span>(1935) “Das Hilfsbuch” (titles tentative; my German is weak, in German because it is poetry; English follows):<\/p>\n

\n

Ein Mensch, nichts wissend von “Mormone”
\nSchaut deshalb nach im Lexikone
\nUnd h\u00e4tt\u00b4 es dort auch rasch gefunden –
\nJedoch er wei\u00df, nach drei, vier Stunden
\nVon den Mormonen keine Silbe –
\nDaf\u00fcr fast alles von der Milbe,
\nVon Missisippi, Mohr und Maus:
\nIm ganzen “M” kennt er sich aus.
\nAuch was ihn sonst gek\u00fcmmert nie,
\nPhysik zum Beispiel und Chemin,
\nLiest er jetzt nach, es fesselt ihn:
\nWas ist das: Monochloramin?
\n“Such unter Hydrazin”, steht da.
\nSchon greift der Mensch zum Bande “H”
\nUnd schl\u00e4gt so eine neue Br\u00fccke
\nZu ungeahntem Wissensgl\u00fccke.
\nJ\u00e4h f\u00e4llt ihm ein bei den Hormonen
\nEr sucht ja eigentlich: Mormonen!
\nEr bl\u00e4ttert m\u00fcd und \u00fcberwacht:
\nMann, Morpheus, Mohn und Mitternacht …
\nH\u00e4tt\u00b4 weiter noch geschm\u00f6kert gern,
\nKam blo\u00df noch bis zum Morgenstern
\nUnd da verneigte er sich tieg
\nNoch vor dem Dichter – und – entschlief.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

English (tweaked machine translation):<\/p>\n

\n

A man, not knowing about mormon,
\nlooks into an encyclopedia,
\nand would have found it there pretty soon –
\nbut after three, four hours he knows
\nnot a syllable about the Mormons,
\nbut nearly everything about the Mite,
\nabout Mississippi, Blackamoor and Mouse:
\nHe knows about the whole “M”.
\nEven something he never cared about,
\nfor instance Physics or Chemistry,
\nnow he reads about it, and it absorbs him:
\nWhat’s that: Monochloramine?
\n“See also Hydracine” stands there.
\nThe man is already grabbing for Volume “H”,
\nand so he creates a new bridge
\nto undreamt Happiness of Knowledge.
\nBut by the “Hormones”, he remembers:
\nHe was looking for the “Mormons”!
\nHe shuffles the page, tired and overwaked:
\nMan, Morpheus, Poppy Seed, Midnight…
\nHe would have liked to read on,
\narrived only at the Morning Star,
\nand bowed deep
\nbefore the Poet – and – died.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I have heard this referred to as the “Wikipedia<\/a> Problem” but clearly it is much, much older and more universal than that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lately I’ve been quite distractable. I partly blame a rescaled sense of urgency from what I tried (and, surprisingly, succeeded) to take on last semester, I partly blame my every-other day class schedule. The fact of the matter is, the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-navel-gazing","category-oldblog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pappp.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}