Obsessive? Moi?

An interesting Desert Island Discs this week where the surgeon, author and former Reith lecturer, Atul Gawande, was the 'castaway'. What I found interesting was not his choice of music but some of the comments he made during the interview which rang a bell with me. At various times he mentioned that he was congenitally curious (ding!), that he could not look at anything without wondering about it (ding!), that he was an information junky (ding!), that he was an information sponge (ding!) and that he loved the internet for giving him access to so much information at his finger tips (ding! ding!)

For as long as I can remember, I’ve always had this insatiable curiosity to learn more. I've always liked gathering information and, although that may sound really nerdy and geeky, it’s true. I like doing research before a trip or walk to make sure I know about anything (and I do mean anything - buildings, flora, fauna, history) interesting we'll encounter. I like reading blogs, writing my blog, reading books, reading magazines and newspapers, watching news programmes, listening to the radio...I even read instruction books and labels on tins, if there's nothing else to hand. And I love the internet because it feeds my habit.

Admittedly, a lot of the information I read is replicative, especially between news sources. That’s not a problem, however as it provides with me with multiple viewpoints on a single story and allows me to make my own decisions instead of having to accept someone else's spin on an issue.

Consuming information is essential to my understanding of the world around me. Hooray for curiosity and a double hooray for the search for information to satisfy it.