Seems like too much too quick

I can't stay too long on the internet. I can't get too involved in a movie. I can't get too involved in a book. If I do, i feel so completely overwhelmed. Why is that? Should I be content to live in a bubble, unsuspecting of the news, real or fictitious, while I decide only what to eat, wear, and accomplish each day? I figure if i tried to keep up with the news, relationships would suffer. Or my prayers and immersion into God's Word. But if i try to meet with and maintain relationships with all the people I care about, then inevitably my knowledge of the world around me is going to suffer. I cannot do it all, and i don't know if that frustrates me or merely confuses me. SHOULD i be frustrated?
I once struggled immensely with the awful realization (more like blatant reminder, since i technically, of course, knew) that even if I started reading today and did not stop until my dying breath, I would never ever be able to read all the books in the world. And then it boiled down even further: I would not even be able to read all the books in a small city library! I would never read about and never learn about all of the things available for me to learn about. My library is just down the street, brimming with vast amounts of pages of opinions, facts, evidence, creative and logical thought, etc. That may sound enticing to some, the fact that we can get almost anything we want on our virtual library, the internet.
But it makes me feel like I need to crawl into a hole and never come out. I find myself admiring things that most of the world does not. I see so many admiring the industry, the dollar, the celebrity status, and the people that make headlines. Historical figures whose names are found in dozens and dozens of books. There are those who become so engrossed in discovering all there is to know about a subject, their thirst seeming never to be quenched. But for reasons i do not know how to verbalize, I would get completely overwhelmed on a quest such as those. Maybe I cling more to the borderline of obsession if i do. I fall in love with ideas, subjects, and recently-discovered knowledge way too easily. To read a day's worth of articles and comments on world magazine's web blogs is enough to consume my thoughts for hours, steal my sleep, my attention, and change the results of my decisions in the coming years. Is that normal? I suppose it is, but i do not hear about it as much as it is actually thought about.
I guess my question is this: should i feel guilty for choosing to avoid much of the current events going on around me if it confuses and overstimulates me to the point of mental paralyzation? Should I consider it cowardly to try to focus my thoughts and attentions on the simplicity of the creation around me, the way a flower smells, the way a baby sleeps, and the way a certain cloth looks with certain beads and pendants? Is it okay to devote an entire day to the rest of my body and soul, or to the task of completing a canvas of meaningful brushstrokes and relevant colorful gestures? Is that a day wasted?

There is simplicity, and there is ignorance. I am certainly not ignorant of the fact that there is no possible way to keep up with all that is important going on around me. But i also see that there is no way to know even .01% of the world's happenings while maintaining a spirit of simplicity. I desire simplicity, but many times feel guilty for not using my time in a more "knowledge-searching" (or what i think is more "profitable") manner. It is always too much or too little for me right now. I am struggling with the two extremes, and how it seems so overwhelmingly impossible for someone like me to meet in the middle. Lord, help me! This struggle, however misconstrued by my lack of organizational typing AND thinking, is something that consumes me the most. Paralyzing me at times. Or throwing me into a disorderly panic (or a panic to get orderly again).
I fear this is mainly just humanity's all-inclusive struggle. That all people have these thoughts and feelings, yet i choose to cling to it to the point of it affecting, usually negatively, my everyday life. But, if there is, perhaps, a secret truth that I have not discovered yet, I pray that the Lord reveals it to me soon.
But what does He desire for me to do with my life in the meantime?