Struggling to Read
Struggling to be
When I was a teen, I remember telling my mother that I was lucky because no matter what happened to me in life, I’d always be happy as long as I had a book.
I loved movies as well, so it’s interesting I said books, not movies. Perhaps it was because movies could only be watched in a theater or on a TV then. Movies weren’t portable, as they are now, whereas a book could go anywhere, a deserted island or a prison.
But I think it was something else. I think I said books because I got a deeper satisfaction of the soul from reading.
I’ve been missing that deeper satisfaction. Somehow, without my knowing it, it withered away, like a neglected house plant.
I read less this year than any year in my adult life. That’s because I’m busy with several projects, including writing books, but it’s also because of something that I’ll call Internet head. iPhone head. Device head. My attention span is so fractured that I have a hard time literally sitting down with a good book and luxuriating in it like I used to.
When I’ve told this to others, I’ve found that almost everyone I know is going through the same thing. Many people have given up reading altogether — people who had always been readers, people who like hanging out in bookstores. Which makes me worried about the…
