Paralysis of ze brain

VOTE. VOTE. VOTE. BELOW. BELOW. BELOW
I have been suffering from what I once read about in some book sometime for some class. I think they called it "tragedy of the rich" or something. I tried to google it and the closest thing I could find was this dude Barry Schwartz who goes around talking about the "paradox of choice" and wrote a book with the same title. It's basically the more resources we have and the more the free market expands the more crap we have to wade through to make a decision on what to buy. Here's a quote I stole from wikipedia:

Autonomy and Freedom of choice are critical to our well being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don't seem to be benefiting from it psychologically.

—quoted from Ch.5, "The Paradox of Choice", 2004

Corollary to this is probably the whole idea of "information overload," or that when everybody is shouting all kinds of brilliance and nonesense and everything in between about the same topic and we have access to all of it, it can be overwhelming to sort it all out and it can cause a sort of brain paralysis (*cough*universal healthcare*cough*). This topic is also, of course, discussed and distilled at the source of all useful information, Wikipedia.

The most sinister recent example for me of both the "paradox of choice" and "information overload" is in the area of baby gear. Seriously, it gives me morning sickness (and I barely had the real stuff). I can not possibly remember more than 10% of the crap I have learned in reviews for strollers. My favorite is when I page through forty reviews about how darling the pattern of the fabric is -- which hello I can see the picture! My second favorite is when every single review of every type of stroller seems to indicate that this particular stroller is the best and every other stroller is a joke. But fine, I'm smart enough to tune out the biased stuff annoying as it may be. However, then you get to the unbiased reviews that indicate what's good and bad about each kind of stroller and what situations each one is best for and what size and what your baby might prefer, unless of course your baby is more like this and blah, blah, blah. The only thing I can discern from this process is that if I want to be truly prepared, I need to buy maybe 5 or 6 of them.

I thought it would help to go to the store, but this is more of the same. First of all, each store has a ridiculous number of brands and styles and yet still is not representative of all the choices out there so you find yourself wondering if something more perfect lurks at another store. Also, if you get the wonderful opportunity of a salesperson's expertise to help you, the waters are muddied all the more. Here I thought I was narrowing it down, and this dude is turning everything on its head and in a crazy way he is starting to make sense. But then he walks away and you or I may be left wondering -- was he making sense or was he just trying to make a sale? In the end I think we are going to reject all these choices and go with just one. The cheap one. Well the cheapest one that is still considered safe. And portable. Oh and comprehensive.

This my friends, is but the tip of the iceberg. There's also a huge list of must-have safety devices and comfort devices and brain development devices and . . .

And, we're only talking about baby gear here. I have not yet begun to plumb the depths of everything about the healthcare bill. And somehow I'm supposed to do my job? And my freelance gig? And my church stuff (big activity tonight I am in charge of)? And my marriage? And work on music recordings? And prepare to give birth? And write my novel? And I want to learn how to knit?

No wonder I watched some dumb TV show on hulu last night.