Information Overload

It was five in the morning, and this was her third energy drink. She knew she should probably sleep, but there was just so much to look at! Did the others know there were online encyclopedias? She'd started out just looking up fun facts about peacocks, and now she was reading an article about this guy Beethoven and his 9th symphony. Does that mean he wrote at least nine whole symphonies?! Wild.


Saraswati had always loved learning new things and music, and there was just so much of it just freely available now. You could play years worth of music from the palm of your hand and never even need to leave home. People who had questions about literally anything could find an answer without needing to consult a scholar. What use was a goddess of knowledge and learning these days?


Maybe it was because there was so much information, or perhaps it was just because it was Wednesday, but Saraswati was bored. She'd read about that Beethoven guy and found some really cool music to play on this Spotify app. No one was really calling on her to help learn things, so there was so much time to just read and absorb. And there were just so many exciting things! Like Beethoven was nifty, but there was this Chuck Berry guy who wanted him to roll over, and what did that even mean? Saraswati swore she kept hearing echoes of other songs within new songs, and that was just something else to search for online! She felt like there were so many layers to everything now, songs within songs and websites within websites!


Saraswati checked the clock again and swore, fluently, in five different languages, including two she just learned and one that no living mortals spoke anymore. It was one in the afternoon. Where had the last eight hours gone? And why were there so many empty cans of Monster and Red Bull around her computer? Oh well, nothing for it - she really wanted to finish this free Harvard course on John Snow. It wasn't the same John Snow she'd heard about on a TV show, but regardless it was fascinating.


The online course was done! Saraswati felt like she had blinked, and it was Sunday. There was another course she was interested in that was all about weather. She also still needed to take that Google maps tour of the pyramids. That reminded her about that review she had read about a video game that would let her walk through ancient Egypt. Better get game, and something to play it on ordered. Apparently, it featured the Egyptian pantheon, and she hadn't seen them in a while. She added it to her growing list. Speaking of lists, she was out of energy drinks and those spicy ramen noodles she really liked. Thank all the other gods she'd found that website to shop for her - now there was basically no reason to ever leave the house again!

Author's Note: Saraswati is the goddess of knowledge, wisdom, learning and music. Imagine being a goddess of all that (and more!) and living today with access to computers and Spotify. Would you ever sleep? I imagine Saraswati would not. She'd have so many things to Google and read and research! And I know most of us can relate to getting sucked into a Wikipedia or YouTube hole - you start out with one thing and next thing you know it's two in the morning and you know you are not going to get any sleep!

The online courses from Harvard are a real thing, as is the specific class on John Snow and the cholera epidemic in London, plus the meteorology class! They are all audit courses, with credits optional on some of them. Additionally Beethoven, as well as many other artists, are sampled in new music all the time. Since Saraswati is the goddess of music and knowledge I really feel like these little ear worms would make her want to find out why she thought she already knew the song.

This story was very loosely inspired by a line is this Saraswati story I found - it just has one little line that says that she was bored. I would want more things to do as well!

The days of the week, Wednesday and Sunday, were picked after some research into Hindu mythology and the planetary associations. Budha is associated with Wednesday and is the god of agile mind and memory. Surya is associated with Sunday and is a sun god. The sun rises and sheds light on things - a good day to come out of a sort of learning trance!





Header source: "Switch!" by andrewfhart is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0