I’ve never been moved to read. “The Classics'' never interested me and a convincing case was never made to raise the activity from the bottom tiers of preferred methods of media consumption. Notable attempts were made throughout the years e.g. Anamorphs, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (because fuck chronology), Fahrenheit 451, 1984, & The Singularity is Near, but nothing ever left an impression and I subsequently tucked reading away as TV, videogames, and eventually the internet were more important.
Fast forward to the anxiety-filled, creatively stagnant but in love with expression, endlessly depressed, knowledge-hungry, open-minded, half oblivious half… not oblivious dad joke telling man that I am now where i think I’ve made a complete 180. Reading brings me to what I feel to be a different level of focus which can lowkey be exhilarating, It provides more nuanced perspectives on subjects, and seeds imagination with a potency reminiscent of mid 90s me. All of this helping to extract ideas out of the gridlocked synapses, or guiding me through depressive funks.
This newfound excitement for the literary is all cool I guess, but I find that it’s something I keep to myself when all I want to do is talk about how I just had my mind blown, why I can’t get with a poetry collection even though I love poetry, or who roasted who in an essay published half a century ago. The last few years have spawned many iterations of “Make Your Own Lane” and I believe that philosophy resonates here specifically so, let’s talk, share, recommend, learn, lets commune!