Reading anxiety

You are feeling bad cause you haven't read that epic. FOMO is killing you. You have a lot on your mind. And still more on your to-do list and to-read list. Relax!

Kierkegaard called this the dizziness of choice. The world right now is replete with information. It is both a good thing and a cancer. It makes it hard to discern quality content from “garbage” content. I call it a cancer because it obscures the quality information. This is why you should not feel bad about reading that book everyone recommends. It may be garbage content.

The slow media manifesto offers a good solution: focusing on the primary sources for the subjects you are interested in. Calling them “battle-tested” books aka Classics! So if you wanted to explore evolutionary biology, you’d choose Darwin’s On The Origin Of Species as your primary text. But even this path has its anxieties. How can we conquer the classics without succumbing to the pressure of an ever-growing list?

Like many problems, the solution is always counter-intuitive. Go slow! Understand that reading that book won't necessarily solve the problem you are currently experiencing. For most books, the book is simply the book. And the problem the author addresses, while it may be similar to yours, is of different circumstances to where you currently are. Most books simply offer perspectives, not panaceas.

For didactic books, the book will enable you to see the steps to finding a solution. And your task will be to chart your own path to your own solution. Engage actively with these books when you are actually in the same situational problem or a foreseeable problem.

For non-didactic books like novels and biographies, the book enables you to see a new world. And hopefully change your worldview/philosophy. This is slow, passive and not urgent. 

The idea that there are just too many books and too little time can be misleading and threatening. We don't need to read extensively about our situational problems to solve them. Just a little. Understand that every media has an audience. We might not be the specific audience. 

Don’t beat yourself up. Relax! Pick up that Proust, that Dostoevsky, that Austen. Take your time to read those books. Savor each of them. Let the words wash over you and the stories resonate with your current situation. Reading should be a source of joy, not anxiety.