Parting a Sea of Gnats

Before the information age began, it was entirely possible to shut the gnats out for a day.  Lock the doors, close the windows, turn the phone off... and Voila... a day without these pesky little bugs could begin.  Mosquitoes they are not, but gnats are nevertheless an annoying part of our lives.


But now, in the advanced and ever more superior Information Age, the gnats travel in not only by open doors, windows, and via telephone... but also through the ever-expanding Cloud.  They travel from far away places like China and Australia. They come in from the Employer Hatchery and other nearby and similarly sinister places. They penetrate every nook and cranny of our daily lives.  They come with bells, whistles, ringtones and the like... they swarm, they perch, they annoy, and they mock.

At the end of the day (if I am lucky enough to have such an end to any day), they take shelter on their little To-Do perches, make nests, and multiply in the night... as methodically and as rapidly as a herd of rabbits in a lush warren.



If I even so much as dare to indulge in the rare and rapidly declining act of concentrating, the gnats will quickly take offense, gather their numbers, and swoop down in an organized swarm to thwart any attempt at meaningful focus designed to produce something more than a three line e-mail, a one line-text, a two-minute phone call.  If I dare to dream bigger, to endeavor to write anything of many pages with some loftier purpose in mind than Task Mastering 101, the gnats will know.  And they will come.

I have heard that solutions to the problem of gnats are held in a body of knowledge known as Time Management.  I have heard that people whose expertise is Time Management will spout wisdom regarding the management of gnats.   I have heard that these peoples will tell eager listening ears to cast many of the gnats away. Strike them from their To-Do perches.   Blast them out the door in an explosion of well-constructed Priorities.  Take control of the Gnats!


But, alas, I have some bad news for these well meaning teachers and coaches -- about the evolution of modern gnats.   Yes, it's true... the proliferating To-Do gnat has continued to evolve over time.   In response to the many efforts to destroy the gnats, gnats have evolved to become time-management resistant.   They have learned their tricks from their friends, the bacterial infectors who no longer respond to something as mundane as the antibiotic police.

This is the way it goes.  A gnat shunned has learned to evolve into a mosquito.   Rather than simply buzzing around my head, the shunned gnat becomes a proboscis perpetrator, designed to abruptly and rudely sting its way onto my radar screen.  If that doesn't work, the resulting sting will stimulate the itch-and-scratch segment of my brain to the exclusion of all else.


Like many others, however, I have discovered both mosquito repellent and cortisone.  If I have both of these modern marvels on hand, I can manage both the gnat and the mosquito problem simultaneously, thereby finding some peaceful time to focus and sometimes, ever so rarely, producing something of quality and creativity.

However, and this is a true story.  Some gnats, obnoxious creatures that they are, do not give up, even at the evolution-into-mosquito stage.  As demands for my time and attention may occasionally fail, one or more particularly insistent gnats will up the ante on intellectual pestering, transforming into:


All joking aside, it's a wee bit difficult to ignore a dragon breathing fire down your neck. There is no OTC solution to that problem... so whatever is a person to do to combat this ever increasing and ever evolving swarm of tasks that takes away from doing anything prolonged and meaningful in life?

In the absence of a grand electromagnetic storm that wipes out our telecommunications and internet, it appears that the most we can hope for in our illustrious time management schemes is to Part the Sea of Gnats, ever so briefly.  At these exquisite times, when the Sea of Gnats parts, we must run through the gap... quickly and immediately... to whatever meaningful goal we may find truly important in our lives.

Be forewarned.  We must not be naive about the Sea of Gnats.  It will not remain parted.  Rather, when the time is right (for the Gnats, not for us), the Sea will close quickly and unexpectedly, thus leaving us bogged down once again with the swarm of things to do buzzing around our heads, drowning out the the call of any more purposeful things that may be accomplished in life.

And, then we must wait for the next time, when our clever efforts and diligence may once again Part the Sea... and the Gnats shut their mouths and demands for another momentary bout of calm, peace, and focus.