Why Can't I Read Anymore?

Fun fact: When you read the Holy Bible upside down it reveals conspiracy theories about The Beatles.

Many people who haven't known me long are often surprised to learn that before I was a chemistry nerd I was also an arts and literature nerd. Throughout high school I read a variety of books, I wrote song lyrics, short stories and poetry. I did quite a lot of drama and did 4 units of English for the HSC, which included the composition of a sizable major work. 

I think this surprises people because for whatever reason, especially at university level, people align themselves with the major faculties and tend to ignorantly lash out at the others. My biggest guess is that these people have commited to a career associated with this field and are determined to justify this choice by ruthlessly attacking and disregarding the specialties and fields that differ most from their own. I've personally been the victim of sneers from arts students of a university I don't even attend, who were quick to judge my character based on my "inferior university".  I'm personally guilty of cheekily winding up some of my closest arts friends, but I do so only in jest with no malice or ill will behind it. But all of that aside I was once very heavily aligned with the arts and humanities. I was once hoping to become a librarian and was enrolled briefly in a Bachelor of Communications. Looking back on this recently something has struck me about my more recent years and I find myself asking myself one simple question.

 

Now just to clear this point up right away, of course I can actually read. I posses the necessary mental faculties and skills to read books, even more challenging ones. But over that past few years or so I've found that reading a book takes a considerably longer amount of time. I'll often start a book enthusiastically like a puppy who knows it's time for walkies, but it's not uncommon for me to clean up a desk several months later to find a dusty copy of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein with a bookmark a third of the way through. I was fucking enjoying that book too. To this day I want to finish it and have every intention of picking it back up again, but why did I stop? Not only to I find even the most engaging books "putdownable" but I also manage to spend weeks on end wrapped up in enough other things to make me forget I was reading it.

In an attempt to explain this and shift the blame from myself I've come up with some explanations to my behaviour. Firstly and most simply understood, I blame the internet. Of course I've had access to the internet all the time but as soon as connections become fast and accessible enough for chumps like me to use social networking sites and stream television a non-trivial ammount of time has become dedicated to being online. Not only that, but it has meant that I am used to instant gratification. There's never a moment gone by where I feel like I'm completely "on top" of the vast amount of potentially, personally interesting media that I can readily access at any time I see fit. It used to be that we had to fit ourselves into the schedule of entertainment such as tv and when we were free if nothing was on we could easily turn to reading, because reading was one of the first sources of "instant gratification'. Before the internet nothing could really compete with it.

Maybe if more women wanted me to read I'd be more consistent?

The other problem is perhaps even less conquorable and that is this. I'm going to die. I don't know when and I don't know how it will come to happen but there's no escaping the knowledge that my time on this earth is finite. As a consequence of this I am accutely aware that I will not be able to enjoy all the media out there, or even all the entertainment that would likely appeal to me. My leisure time is as limited a resource as fossil fuels and the knowledge that each choice I make regarding how I spend my free time may mean I never ever get around to the other option makes it very appealing to avoid making the choices at all. And books fall short in this respect because they have the disadvantage of being long. Books are a long term investment in a way that a movie, a song, a TV show and even a video game manage not to be. A book is a large scented candle whilst other media are fireworks. One pleasantly burns away over many hours whilst the other is desperate to instantly stimulate.

But despite this knowledge and these hurdles I've been starting to rework my reading muscles and have managed to get through sizable books like Steve Tolt's A Fraction of the Whole. As I type I am 160 pages into The Count of Monte Cristo and have strength in my conviction to see it through to the end. With a small pile of books to follow it up with I'm quietly hopeful that I will manage to burn through many more candles before I'm snuffed.