I choose to read

I just tallied up some of the choices that I've made over the last six months. After neglecting to update my bought but not read list for pretty much the entire year, I just found out that my path to Book Shelf Zero stands at 181 books. That's not really the point of the project. The point is to read all the books I own before I die. How will I ever find out what kind of transformation is waiting for me on the other side of all these books if I fail to read them? Of course I've never consciously think about the latent transformation potential of my unread books, but waiting for these books to change me in a way that makes me more of who I think I should be consistently emerges as the best explanation for continuously returning to this goal despite getting no closer to its completion. I'm not sure goal is even the right word. Compulsion. Habit. Distraction. Probably all of the above.

Completing the goal was never really the point of the activity in the first place. I was never going to stop buying books. The point was to read them at a pace faster than I was buying so I would eventually get to reading all of my books. The aspirational books are the most likely titles to elude a quick read. The fun ones get read. The ones that could actually change me in some way just sit on the shelves. They are fun little reminders that there are things I will never get to in my life, no matter how valuable the experience could prove. Book Shelf Zero is my fear of death project. Reading all of my books is a way to deny my mortality. I don't have an infinite number of somedays, but who cares about that when I have all of these books that I will eventually get around to reading. 

I recently bought a book because it reminded me of why I started this project (well, explicitly stated that I wanted to read my books, there was also an implicit assumption that I was buying these books to read them). My copy of The March to the Sea and Beyond once belonged to Philip Crosby. I know this because he used his embosser to mark the book, twice, and signed it the day he bought the book. I assume that Phil's family sold the books after he died. This item that he valued enough to mark it indelibly as his came into my possession when I bought it from a used book store in St Petersburg, Florida. My books will likely meet a similar fate. I feel like I've built myself with books. It's probably not accurate, I'm much more than the books I've read, but reading and books have always been a part of me. 

Book Shelf Zero is about reconnecting with books and reading (before it's too late!). The goal is a reminder to pick up and read what I own rather than hunting for the next book to buy. As buying books and reading them are two distinct but connected activities, BSZ was my way of shifting the arrow of that equilibrium towards reading. My failure to read more of what I bought is just me choosing to do other things than read. I've had plenty of excuses to not read over the last few years. If I am sincere about wanting to read more, and I really think I am, I need to make the choice to read. Directing my will towards reading and its transformative capacity will be my subversive act against the assault on our time, attention, and thoughts from all kinds of governmental and commercial cartels. My mind is my own. My choices are my own. I become the choices I make. I choose to read.