Information overload

When I attended the University of Delaware, I’d look at the course catalog and have difficulty narrowing down, say, 300 courses to the five I could take each semester. I wanted to learn about everything--anthropology, politics, film, literature, history, sociology, philosophy, even some of the science classes. Narrowing the list potentially implied a tragic loss of opportunity and knowledge. It was a stressful process.

I feel the same way about living in Belfast. There is so much going on that I am overwhelmed by the possibilities and end up doing very little. I think I’ve complained about this before (granted, first world problem), but now I have irrefutable evidence. Here’s the Belfast City Guide’s Must Do list of festivals, with the number of events in parentheses:
Out to Lunch (50)
NI Science Festival (100)
International Festival of Chamber Music (8)
Belfast Nashville Songwriter’s Festival (48)
Belfast Children’s Festival (52)
Belfast Jazz Festival (9)
Belfast Fashion Week (21)
Imagine Festival of Ideas and Politics (70)
Feile an Earraigh (21)
St. Patrick’s Day celebrations
Spring into Easter Festival
Belfast Film Festival (133)
Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival (83)

The dates of these festivals, which run from January through April, overlap and many events within each festival are on simultaneously. I’ve just spent probably two hours going through the guide for the Imagine festival, reading about each of the 70 events, selecting 13 I’m interested in, then trying to register for each one (tickets are free but you have to register; two events were sold out and I’m on a waiting list for two more).

Having so many festivals means you have to get on top of the “course catalog” early, before the “class” is full. Which is just like being 18 at the University of Delaware. The end result is the same: the opportunity to learn, to expand my horizons, to shift how I see the world. My hat is off to all the creative, curious, engaged people who make all of this happen in Belfast.

3-8