I'd Like To Read More

I used to read a lot as a kid. Somewhere along the way I lost that habit. I like to blame social media for giving me an awful attention span, but I know it started much before that.

Around the time I graduated from high school is when I first noticed my dithering focus. It still wasn't too bad until my second year in college or so. By the end of college, I'd pick up a book and read the first line on the page at least a dozen times, and it still wouldn't register. It almost felt physically painful to make my mind focus and comprehend.

It still does. But the mental ineptitude has somewhat evolved, so to speak. Beneath the general fogginess in my mind seeps a genuine disinterest in just about everything. I don't read anymore because I don't care. The stories of magical wonders and deep bonds and friendships and witty banter that drew me to my favourite books as a child no longer hold any appeal to me. Or maybe they do, but I can't be bothered to explore any of those worlds again because that makes my brain hurt. And when I really want to, I instead end up priotising menial chores since work leaves me with barely any time to do them up as it is (also, I've always been bad with time management haha...ha.). I think the real issue though is that I'm avoiding picking up a book again because I find it mentally taxing. Maybe I should try comic books or something.

This extends beyond reading, of course. My 'creative output' is few and far between. I've dropped pretty much all my older hobbies, though I keep trying to pick them up again, alternatingly.

As far as I can remember, I've always picked up a dozen different hobbies at a time, each for a short duration before my mind would pick another interest to busy itself with. But I'd always circle back to my old hobbies eventually. I don't think I ever lost interest in them before, I'd just keep taking long, erratic breaks. The breaks, however, seem to be getting longer and longer the more I Adult in life.

It took me several years to realise it, but when I move on to a new interest lately, it is almost always something that takes less concentration than my previous one. So I moved from sketching, crochet and violin in my younger years to things like decoupage which involve maybe 10 minutes of work, and several hours before you can add anything else to the project. The violin was probably the last mentally strenuous thing I took up, and I barely moved past Twinkle Twinkle Little Star before taking a loooooooong 'break'. Picked it up again last week and felt my ears bleed.

I finally understand what Bilbo meant when he talked of feeling like butter scraped over too much bread. That's how my mind feels a lot of the time, and COVID made it 11.23x worse.

I'd like to change that though. And I figured the best way to start is to try going back to my first ever interest - books. Not going too well at the moment, but I can keep trying.

So yeah, I would like to read more.