It’s not spiraling out of control if it doesn’t really go anywhere

I’m reading this really interesting novel right now, the premise of which is the reincarnation of a few souls throughout the history of the world, except it’s an alternate history to our own, one in which most of European society in the dark ages was totally annihilated by a plague, and thus Arabic and Indian and East Asian and Native American cultures flourished instead of being conquered, colonized and wiped out. It’s totally engrossing, and yet, I’m starting to feel like I’m not reading it fast enough, since the only time I devote to it is on the Metro every weekday morning and evening. At the pace I’m going, I probably will not finish it by the end of the month. Which makes me feel like I’m falling behind.

Behind on what? I made an offhand comment in this space yesterday about finally catching up on Blackest Night, although that was only true yesterday, because as of today (new comics day!) a new issue of Green Lantern is on the stands, and I need to first find the time to get to a shop and buy it and then find the time to read it, and then start the cycle all over again the following Wednesday. That’s the business model of comics publishers, to make sure that the only way the reader/collectors generally feel caught up is if the reader/collectors are buying the latest installments of a continuous never-ending saga every single week. My one consolation is that Blackest Night is a discrete chunk of that saga which I can (someday, soon) catch up on and then be done with. They’ll just be publishing other new Green Lantern stories after that, and I’m on the fence as to how willing I am to go along for the next leg of the ride.


So, given the much slower publishing schedule for books, not to mention the fact that (as far as I know) The Years of Rice and Salt is a self-contained novel and not part of a series, how can I feel like I’m falling behind? To a large extent it has to do with my Pop Resolution to read, what was it, 53 books this year? TYORAS would be my eighth, which is not exactly a world-beater pace. The obvious solution then seems to be that I should just read more in my spare time, but that would cut into my comics reading, or my DVD watching, or any of the other things I really feel like I should be doing more of but don’t have time for as it is.

(I have actually contemplated waking up somewhat earlier to try to squeeze a few more moments of consciousness into my daily allotment of time in which to Get Things Done, but then I remember how wretched I usually feel when the snooze alarm goes off for the third time as it is, and I know that backing up the rise-and-shine isn’t gonna work.)

The really crazy thing is that I am fully, consciously aware of how little sense any of this makes. Maybe it stems from my years spent as an English major wrestling with multiple syllabi, but I know I’m not in school any more. Maybe it’s an outgrowth of some old need to competitively prove myself, but I know that I’m not really contesting anything at the moment. Nobody cares if I read 53 books this year or 27 or 0. Nothing changes one way or the other. I have lectured myself inside my own head extensively, on multiple occasions, reminding myself that I should be reading books because I enjoy reading and prefer passing the time on my commute thatw ay, and that in and of itself should be enough. Any hobby or interest which fills me with dread and angst and a nightmarish feeling of an angry anthropomorphic TO DO list looming over my shoulder is really not a very good hobby or healthy interest. Life’s too short! Do what makes you happy! Blah blah blah!

I don’t need someone to give me a wake-up call and deliver these little pearls of wisdom to me, because I’ve already got them in hand, internalized and understood. They just don’t seem to really change anything. The feeling of pressure to read more, watch more, consume more, keep up with more – that’s not coming from some external locus. It’s a part of who I am. Apparently reading makes me happy but reading as much as I possibly can also makes me happy, and even trying and failing at that does something for me, and letting myself off the hook for meeting arbitrary quotas wouldn’t make me any happier. It’s very weird, but there it is.