The question of should underlines pretty much every aspect of my Book Shelf Zero quest. I should read all the books that I have bought. My decision to buy certain books was guided by an idea of what I should be reading. The notion that I should be reading (rather than playing video games, watching some show or movie, or doing something else with my time) more was one of the numerous subtle motivations that got me started on this decision to read all of my books. I thought it would be fun to watch the progress and reflect on what I was dealing with as I read through my books, but it really just felt like something I should do. It felt right. It felt consistent with what I'm trying to accomplish with my reading.
I should be a certain kind of person and that kind of person reads a certain kind of book. Or simply reads period. I freely acknowledge that this approach to reading, an activity that brings me considerable joy and happiness despite my insistence on projecting identity reinforcement all over it, is pointless. The question that emerges for me from this perspective on my reading habit and the constructs that I have erected around it is how I reached this state in the first place. What psychological hole did reading fill? Reading helped me make sense of the world at some point. That mindset persists well into my adulthood. Why is it still here? Is it making me a better person or allowing me to stay a pretentious ass?
I've asked myself these questions before. I ask them over and over again. As I keep asking them, whatever answers I dug up must not have been very satisfactory. Getting good answers must mean taking a new approach. I stumbled on this new approach a week or so ago. I found this interview with Nick Chater. Chater has written a whole book about how our minds are improvisation machines, constructing our reality in real time. The idea is similar to how emotions are constructs the brain applies to particular physiological states, with the context for particular arousal states playing a key role in determining the emotional interpretation. So my motivations to read are not based in some need buried somewhere in my unconscious experience. There is not unconscious experience in which to base that need. It's just something I do because it's something I've always done.
There is no need for me to tell myself some intricate and involved story about why I read. I don't need to plunge into my dark corners to find a motivation to read or understand why I'm not all that into reading at any given time (like now). Those stories aren't getting at anything directly related to my reading habit. I haven't been particularly motivated to read much over the last month or so. I've been reading, but my progress on any given book is fairly slow. This is likely more about my life circumstances over that period of time than anything directly related to my reading choices. I've been wrapped up in the baseball playoffs and playing Dr Mario on my phone. I've been cutting myself a bit of slack on feeling compelled to make progress on some arbitrary goal. I've been working on giving more energy to my family. My lack of posts on this blog isn't evidence of my inability to commit to the blog. It's a combination of having no time to write posts at work and the lack of a good computer for blogging at home.
I've spent too much of my life thinking that what I did had a direct impact on my value as a person. Reading more books makes me a better person. This narrative is not very helpful. It motivated me to read more books, but it wasn't much of a help in being a better husband or father. Reading all of my books won't make me a better person. It will just make me somebody who managed to read the books that he bought. It's not a statement of value.
Now, reading on the plane while everybody else is looking at their phone or some other screen is definitely evidence of my superiority over my fellow airline passengers.
