Done looking for new stuff to read
"Done" may be a category of blog posts here, since in the past year I've recognized there are so, so many things this 72yo is done with. For now I'll begin the titles with "Done".
For most of my life I've had the habit of queuing up interesting things to read. Books, articles, web pages, blog posts, if it looked like reading it would teach me something new and interesting I would add it to my reading list somehow — buy the book and shelve it, add the magazine to my TBR stack, save the web page on my computer. I did often get to some of those things, learned a lot, often exploring topics I never would have otherwise experienced.
My feed was always full, overflowing. Even then I kept adding to it, thinking of it as a bounty, a vast smorgasbord that I could browse when hungry, always confident I'd find something tasty because I was the one who had assembled it.
Occasionally I was overwhelmed — or my physical shelves got full — and I took a moment to prune back the thicket. Sometimes violently, declaring RSS bankruptcy or donating hundreds (a couple of times thousands) of books to the Friends of the Library for resale. But I continued on the lookout, and the queue steadily filled again with new bounty.
Lately, though, the bounty became more of a burden. I continued to collect material on topics that interested me as future reading — but I was now running out of future. Finally I asked myself: no matter how fascinated I am by a topic, how likely am I to devote any of my remaining time to exploring it? Followed by: even if I there's more to learn about a topic, do I already know enough? Followed by: how likely will exploring that topic improve what life I have left to me?
Not much made the cut! Almost all my remaining physical books are gone, I kept only those that I liked so much I wanted them on hand to possibly re-read, plus a few that would make light and easy reading on days when I wanted that. I cleared my RSS feed of everything, all the news, all the cultural stuff, all the good writers … there are too many good writers, too few hours in the day.
I was surprised at the spaciousness it created, the psychic weight that was lifted from my shoulders. In years gone by I would become interested in understanding something, say American slavery or mindfulness or agrarianism, proceed to collect the best writings on the topic, then set myself to plowing through them systematically. I learned a lot, even had dramatic shifts in how I approached life. I was changed for the better. It was worth the effort.
But the time for such shifts are over. Whether or not some remaining change might make me a better person, there's neither time nor resources nor opportunity to act on the change. And since there's so little left for me to do, that I'm able to do, I'd rather spend the time and effort reflecting on my life as it has unfolded and enjoying the place where I find myself now.
I still read, and still enjoy it. But I spend much less time reading, feel no obligation to read any particular thing, and no guilt over spending time on more frivolous stuff.