The library ebooks are too easy to pull into my Kindle library. I can just pile them in there and add new ebooks to the piles of physical books that already taunt me with their many unread pages. Putting holds on these ebooks makes the situation even more complicated. I can't predict when one of them will become available. They just pop into my library totally indifferent to my current reading priorities. Do I read the interesting book I just borrowed with no wait or should I focus on the book I had to wait weeks to finally download?
I've been facing this dilemma all too often over the last few weeks. The Kindle Fire hack, where I can keep reading the book after my loan period expires as long as I don't go back to the home screen, allowed me to finish reading The Lost Colony (book 3 of The Old Man's War series) over the weekend. The delay in reading that was caused by the time I spent reading a book about parenting that I bought after reading some columns by the author online. I finished that book on Monday. Those two books bring my books read up to 39 for the year.
With both of those books finished I faced the rare instance of having no books in progress. After reading a few pages of some book I was able to check out without waiting in line, I started reading that book I mentioned about sleep. I heard an interview with the author on the Joe Rogan podcast. It was fascinating. I looked at the book in the store but wasn't compelled enough to take the step of actually buying it. I only recently thought to see if I the library had the electronic version. The wait wasn't too long, but other books were also becoming available as I was wrapping up The Lost Colony. The unpredictable aspect of when I will get a book that I have on hold makes figuring out what to read that much harder. I had to choose between Why we Sleep and the second book of the Outline trilogy. I have more time with Outline book so I went ahead and started reading the book about sleep.
My reading has taken a back seat to other parts of my life over the last couple of weeks. I ran the Marine Corps Marathon on October 28 (I jotted down some thoughts about that experience and how to do it better but I can't decide if I want to post it here or on my other, mostly neglected, blog). I spent most of the next week focusing on recovering from the marathon. Bedtime took a priority over reading. The marathon was why I had to rely on the Kindle hack. I was focused on the marathon rather than reading in the week leading up to and after my very long run. This week's unusual event was the watch party for a local Congressional candidate. My daughter really wanted to see if her Girl Scout troop leader was going to win. I was very leery about the whole thing, but it was important to her so I decided to do what I could to make it happen. It was mostly successful, the candidate won but we left well before the race was called in her favor, but that late night has impacted me all week. I was falling asleep early last night so I had no chance to read (I'm not going to force myself to stay up to read a book that highlights the need for us to get adequate sleep, especially when I get up early the next day to run). Most of these big life events are behind me so I should be able to get back to more reading in the next couple of weeks.
I have yet to read a page, but I am going to take on Dickens again when I get time to return to a physical book. I have decided to go with Martin Chuzzlewit. It is shorter than Little Dorritt and feels slightly more intriguing. My commitment to this reading choice was reinforced when I was looking over some posts from that neglected blog earlier today. That other blog was started as a way for me to track progress on my New Year's Resolutions. One of those resolutions was to read all of the big Dickens novels. I made that goal in 2010. It's almost 9 years later and I'm still far from realizing it. Realizing Book Shelf Zero will require reading most of those big novels so making progress on one of these goals gets me closer to the other. I've talked myself out of these books for long enough. It's time to take on another one. I hope it's a fairly fast read. I've been sitting at 148 owned books to read for months!
Wednesday, November 14, 2018
Monday, November 5, 2018
Back to 148...and time to find something new to read
I finished Inversions earlier in the week. It's the fifth book that I've read of the Culture series. The reviews complain that this book wasn't really a part of that series as there are no massive star ships or sentient drones. Those things are part of the story, we just don't see them. We get to experience the Culture from the outside. It's a very clever way to add depth and significance to a sprawling space opera.
I was reading a library ebook while wrapping up Inversions, but my loan period ended before I could finish it.That doesn't mean that I wasn't able to finish the book, Outline by Rachel Cusk, though. I have an old Kindle Fire that has been sitting in a kitchen drawer for years. I've gone back to it after getting a crack in the screen of my phone. I was able to keep reading my expired book on this device right up until this morning when I finished the book. Assuming this wasn't a one time fluke event, this could be a very handy hack for taking some of the pressure off of my library reads. Getting these books from the 21st Century canon via the library has been a great way to expand my reading breadth without buying a bunch of books. I just skimmed the surface of Outline. That book was deep while being well written and a pleasure to read. It's the first of a trilogy. I will make an effort to go deeper on the next two volumes (I already have a hold on book 2).
That additional time could be handy as I start reading the next book in the Old Man's War series. My wait for book 3 wasn't as long as my wait for book 2, but that doesn't mean I want to let my loan period end without finishing the book. These are pretty quick reads so I don't feel like I will have too much pressure to get it done before my loan period ends, but knowing I can go a couple of days over will be helpful if my reading motivation wanes around running my second marathon ever, the Marine Corps Marathon in DC, this weekend.
While my next ebook selection is clear, I'm a bit up in the air about which print book to read next. My first thought was to pick up one of my long neglected Dickens books. Every year I say I'm going to read another of his major works, but they just never seem to rise to the top of my reading pile. Committing to a Dickens book is not a trivial matter. The books are thick and usually start slow. They get very rollicking by the end, but getting to that point can be a bit of a drag. Overcoming this kind of inertia is exactly the point of Book Shelf Zero so perhaps now is the perfect time to make a move on one of these monsters. Martin Chuzzlewit was a big part of The Eyre Affair so I was thinking of reading that one next. Dombey and Son is just so damn long (I made it about half way through that one before bailing on it several years ago) and my previous attempts at Oliver Twist have never gotten very far. Little Dorritt is also an option, but I really have nothing compelling me to read about people in a debtor's prison. Maybe I'll just go with the shorter of Martin Chuzzlewit and Little Dorritt.
I was reading a library ebook while wrapping up Inversions, but my loan period ended before I could finish it.That doesn't mean that I wasn't able to finish the book, Outline by Rachel Cusk, though. I have an old Kindle Fire that has been sitting in a kitchen drawer for years. I've gone back to it after getting a crack in the screen of my phone. I was able to keep reading my expired book on this device right up until this morning when I finished the book. Assuming this wasn't a one time fluke event, this could be a very handy hack for taking some of the pressure off of my library reads. Getting these books from the 21st Century canon via the library has been a great way to expand my reading breadth without buying a bunch of books. I just skimmed the surface of Outline. That book was deep while being well written and a pleasure to read. It's the first of a trilogy. I will make an effort to go deeper on the next two volumes (I already have a hold on book 2).
That additional time could be handy as I start reading the next book in the Old Man's War series. My wait for book 3 wasn't as long as my wait for book 2, but that doesn't mean I want to let my loan period end without finishing the book. These are pretty quick reads so I don't feel like I will have too much pressure to get it done before my loan period ends, but knowing I can go a couple of days over will be helpful if my reading motivation wanes around running my second marathon ever, the Marine Corps Marathon in DC, this weekend.
While my next ebook selection is clear, I'm a bit up in the air about which print book to read next. My first thought was to pick up one of my long neglected Dickens books. Every year I say I'm going to read another of his major works, but they just never seem to rise to the top of my reading pile. Committing to a Dickens book is not a trivial matter. The books are thick and usually start slow. They get very rollicking by the end, but getting to that point can be a bit of a drag. Overcoming this kind of inertia is exactly the point of Book Shelf Zero so perhaps now is the perfect time to make a move on one of these monsters. Martin Chuzzlewit was a big part of The Eyre Affair so I was thinking of reading that one next. Dombey and Son is just so damn long (I made it about half way through that one before bailing on it several years ago) and my previous attempts at Oliver Twist have never gotten very far. Little Dorritt is also an option, but I really have nothing compelling me to read about people in a debtor's prison. Maybe I'll just go with the shorter of Martin Chuzzlewit and Little Dorritt.
Tuesday, October 23, 2018
Collections
I have added The Horse's Mouth to my collection of completed books. I have moved it from the to be read pile, a place of angst and vexation, to the glory of the read list. Let me gesture to the six hundred and some long list of books that I have read. My virtual book shelf bursts with all kinds of interesting reads. I'm oh so cultured and refined! The Collector also recently joined the read list. It has a nice cameo appearance in an episode of Criminal Minds. That's where I first heard of it. I read another book by the author, The French Lieutenant's Woman, and found that appealing enough. I put a hold on the ebook at the library and waited for my turn to access the file. That time came right as I was finishing up Never Let Me Go. I only had a few days to get through The Collector. I wasn't sure I was going to get the entire book read, but I made a push on the last day of my loan period and made it to the end.
The captive in The Collector, holds the collector (as a general class of consumers of what creatives like her produce) in very low esteem. They fail to adequately feel the power of Art. Possession dominates the experience of the sublime. I couldn't help seeing myself in that characterization. I find myself more interested in the acquisition of a book, replacing the act of reading a book with a deeper appreciate and experience of a novel. The obsessive recording of my reading activities should hold little appeal if I was truly interested in expanding my living experience through books rather than adorning myself with the proxy of a deeper aesthetic experience by listing the titles of all the highly acclaimed books that I have looked at page by page, word by word.
I'm over dramatizing the depravity of my reading experience. I experience far more of the books that I read than anything that I ever record here or anywhere else. The experience of all my books is captured in me. Not every book is captured in an equal degree, but they all leave their mark and add a few more lines of code to the software that is my lived experience. Reading books is no flaunting of wealth or claiming access to some exclusive cultural capital. My lists are just a way to capture a largely ephemeral experience. They also show how my world and experiences have shaped me into the largely conventional person that is just trying to live his life.
I come to the crux of what I really wanted to write a few minutes before I told myself I would go to bed. At least I made it this far. I live in an acquisitive era. Accumulation has been elevated to the highest of virtues. Physical object, varied experiences, or a moment captured in the pixels of a phone are all equally valid ways to acquire meaningful things. The experience has been elevated above the object, but acquisitiveness remains at the core of our meaning making. We turn our back on family and important relationships to pursue degrees and career paths that have attained irrationally high levels of cultural value. Excessive material comfort trumps the psychological riches of deep and meaningful relationships. We seek to find our place in the world by surrounding ourselves with the paraphernalia of opulence rather than nurturing the relationships that bring richness and depth to our experience. Luxury is a sorry remedy for loneliness. The two friends who get to spend a two hour plane ride deep in conversation are having an experience much more profound than the few drinks the business traveler in first class tosses back while writing emails about a project that he wouldn't care about a lick if he wasn't getting paid to take some many flights around the country that the airline rewards him with access to the acquisition of one of the wide seats at the front of the plane.
I'm sometimes not sure if I'm collecting reward points with my reading or spending my time conversing with a friend. It really depends on the book. The Horse's Mouth was a project read. The Collector was hurried due to circumstances, but it was more than just reading the book to say I read it. That's the way I need to look at this project. Every book comes to me in its own way with its own impact. I'll deal with some real dreck, but I will also read books that will impact me long after they are added to the read list (which currently stands at 627 books; 149 owned books waiting to be read (that number will be dropping to 148 soon).
The captive in The Collector, holds the collector (as a general class of consumers of what creatives like her produce) in very low esteem. They fail to adequately feel the power of Art. Possession dominates the experience of the sublime. I couldn't help seeing myself in that characterization. I find myself more interested in the acquisition of a book, replacing the act of reading a book with a deeper appreciate and experience of a novel. The obsessive recording of my reading activities should hold little appeal if I was truly interested in expanding my living experience through books rather than adorning myself with the proxy of a deeper aesthetic experience by listing the titles of all the highly acclaimed books that I have looked at page by page, word by word.
I'm over dramatizing the depravity of my reading experience. I experience far more of the books that I read than anything that I ever record here or anywhere else. The experience of all my books is captured in me. Not every book is captured in an equal degree, but they all leave their mark and add a few more lines of code to the software that is my lived experience. Reading books is no flaunting of wealth or claiming access to some exclusive cultural capital. My lists are just a way to capture a largely ephemeral experience. They also show how my world and experiences have shaped me into the largely conventional person that is just trying to live his life.
I come to the crux of what I really wanted to write a few minutes before I told myself I would go to bed. At least I made it this far. I live in an acquisitive era. Accumulation has been elevated to the highest of virtues. Physical object, varied experiences, or a moment captured in the pixels of a phone are all equally valid ways to acquire meaningful things. The experience has been elevated above the object, but acquisitiveness remains at the core of our meaning making. We turn our back on family and important relationships to pursue degrees and career paths that have attained irrationally high levels of cultural value. Excessive material comfort trumps the psychological riches of deep and meaningful relationships. We seek to find our place in the world by surrounding ourselves with the paraphernalia of opulence rather than nurturing the relationships that bring richness and depth to our experience. Luxury is a sorry remedy for loneliness. The two friends who get to spend a two hour plane ride deep in conversation are having an experience much more profound than the few drinks the business traveler in first class tosses back while writing emails about a project that he wouldn't care about a lick if he wasn't getting paid to take some many flights around the country that the airline rewards him with access to the acquisition of one of the wide seats at the front of the plane.
I'm sometimes not sure if I'm collecting reward points with my reading or spending my time conversing with a friend. It really depends on the book. The Horse's Mouth was a project read. The Collector was hurried due to circumstances, but it was more than just reading the book to say I read it. That's the way I need to look at this project. Every book comes to me in its own way with its own impact. I'll deal with some real dreck, but I will also read books that will impact me long after they are added to the read list (which currently stands at 627 books; 149 owned books waiting to be read (that number will be dropping to 148 soon).
Monday, October 8, 2018
Rule breaking (of a rule I imposed on myself)
I violated my not rule of not buying a book if I'm at xx9, I was at 149 unread owned books on Friday. I checked the Kindle Daily Deal, as I do every day, and saw that The Hydrogen Sonata, book 10 of the Culture series, was on sale for $2.99. That's $7 cheaper than the normal ebook price and several more dollars cheaper than the paperback. I bought the book after asking my wife what I should do. She said it was $7 more to spend at Disney World. I made the purchase.
Thinking about it now, it would have been a mistake for me not to buy the ebook regardless of some silly rule I put in place to rein in my rampant book buying desires. I'm planning on reading all of the Culture books so they are in essence already in my reading queue. They are not available at the library so if I'm going to read them, I'm going to have to buy them. I wasn't pushing into new book reading territory with this purchase. I was filling in a gap that I will have to address in the not to distant future anyway. So I'm back up to 150.
I could have saved myself this ludicrous exercise in maintaining some kind of self-imposed consistency if I could get through The Horse's Mouth. It's taken me over a month to get about three quarters of the way though a 400 page book. It's not a bad book, I would just rather read something else. I'm trying to make sure I read at least 10-15 pages a day, but I'm not always very consistent in meeting that goal. It's particularly hard when I have much more intriguing reads going on my phone. I started Never Let Me Go after finishing Leaving the Atocha Station. I was just checking out the first few pages to see if I should read that or one of my other borrowed ebooks next. I was sucked in before I had a chance to consider anything else. The Horse's Mouth just has nothing to offer that compels me to spend time with it rather than Ishiguro's much more gripping (and better written) story. It's hard to put down Never Let Me Go.
I will probably finish Never Let Me Go well before I finish The Horse's Mouth. If I managed 15 pages a day, a very modest goal that would take me 20 minutes to meet, I would finish The Horse's Mouth in about a week. I need to get that book behind me. I picked it up to get another owned book down before reading Inversions, the sixth Culture book, thinking it would be pretty quick. Big mistake. My book reading pace has been maintained, I've read 4 library books while slogging through The Horse's Mouth, but Book Shelf Zero progress has ground to a crawl.
The rationalization contortions I have put myself through over The Hydrogen Sonata merits a revisit to the real purpose of Book Shelf Zero. Yes, part of it is getting to books that I want to read but have not yet gotten around to, but it's also prevents me from jumping into a reading project by buying a bunch of books only to get distracted from that reading project when the next interesting option shows up. I could have really gone crazy and bought at least 3 books from the 21st Century Canon list while at a used book store on Friday. I found several without looking that hard and they were having a buy 2 get one free offer. That would be 3 new books for less than $10. Book Shelf Zero has become ingrained deeply enough that I relied on that goal to walk out the door empty handed (but with the knowledge that I have a rich source of certain books available for a few bucks).
The battles I set up for myself are getting a bit ridiculous. Don't buy that, read more of this, get to this book before my loan period ends. It's draining!
Thinking about it now, it would have been a mistake for me not to buy the ebook regardless of some silly rule I put in place to rein in my rampant book buying desires. I'm planning on reading all of the Culture books so they are in essence already in my reading queue. They are not available at the library so if I'm going to read them, I'm going to have to buy them. I wasn't pushing into new book reading territory with this purchase. I was filling in a gap that I will have to address in the not to distant future anyway. So I'm back up to 150.
I could have saved myself this ludicrous exercise in maintaining some kind of self-imposed consistency if I could get through The Horse's Mouth. It's taken me over a month to get about three quarters of the way though a 400 page book. It's not a bad book, I would just rather read something else. I'm trying to make sure I read at least 10-15 pages a day, but I'm not always very consistent in meeting that goal. It's particularly hard when I have much more intriguing reads going on my phone. I started Never Let Me Go after finishing Leaving the Atocha Station. I was just checking out the first few pages to see if I should read that or one of my other borrowed ebooks next. I was sucked in before I had a chance to consider anything else. The Horse's Mouth just has nothing to offer that compels me to spend time with it rather than Ishiguro's much more gripping (and better written) story. It's hard to put down Never Let Me Go.
I will probably finish Never Let Me Go well before I finish The Horse's Mouth. If I managed 15 pages a day, a very modest goal that would take me 20 minutes to meet, I would finish The Horse's Mouth in about a week. I need to get that book behind me. I picked it up to get another owned book down before reading Inversions, the sixth Culture book, thinking it would be pretty quick. Big mistake. My book reading pace has been maintained, I've read 4 library books while slogging through The Horse's Mouth, but Book Shelf Zero progress has ground to a crawl.
The rationalization contortions I have put myself through over The Hydrogen Sonata merits a revisit to the real purpose of Book Shelf Zero. Yes, part of it is getting to books that I want to read but have not yet gotten around to, but it's also prevents me from jumping into a reading project by buying a bunch of books only to get distracted from that reading project when the next interesting option shows up. I could have really gone crazy and bought at least 3 books from the 21st Century Canon list while at a used book store on Friday. I found several without looking that hard and they were having a buy 2 get one free offer. That would be 3 new books for less than $10. Book Shelf Zero has become ingrained deeply enough that I relied on that goal to walk out the door empty handed (but with the knowledge that I have a rich source of certain books available for a few bucks).
The battles I set up for myself are getting a bit ridiculous. Don't buy that, read more of this, get to this book before my loan period ends. It's draining!
Friday, September 28, 2018
Another list! (and what I learned about lists and life from a kid who poisoned himself in Alaska; spoiler alert - not much)
Another list of highly acclaimed books showed up in one of my numerous information feeds. This list is the best novels (of the sophisticated artistic type) written this century. I've only read a few of the 100 books listed, and I haven't even heard of the vast majority of them. Contemporary literary fiction is not something I pursue with much vigor, but I'm not averse to picking up a solid literary effort of recent vintage. I've read five of the 100 books in the list. That's much lower than either of the other lists that I'm pursuing. I'm not sure this is a list that I want to pursue to completion. This is more of a source for good books to read kind of list.
This attempt at the 21st Century Canon does have a nice feature that makes pursuing parts of the complete list a fairly realizable goal. They have the best book of the century, 12 new classics, and then the rest of the list. Reading the top 13 books isn't such a huge task.
I've already used my new favorite way to grab new reading material, borrowing ebooks from the library, to get a couple of books from the list. I've borrowed a couple and put holds on a couple more. I actually just finished a borrowed ebook. Into the Wild. My one sentence summary, Krakhauer romanticizes Chris McCandless the same way McCandless romanticized Nature. All I could think of while reading the book were the freaks that I knew in college (the only place I would ever encounter people who take life to such extremes) and how odd and totally out there I found them. I didn't find myself inspired by the thoughts and words of an overly intellectual kid who was conducting some crazy life experiment. I ironically comment on the conventionality of my life from time to time, but I have absolutely zero desire to engage in some kind of crazy minimalist, anti-capitalism kind of life. I'll keep plugging away at my career while pursuing an odd compulsion to read books from random lists that I find on the internet.
Pretty much every book that I read is in pursuit of checking some book off a list that I have in a Google Docs spreadsheet. Into the Wild is actually a rare departure from my pursuit of Book Shelf Zero or some internet list. I guess I'm just too goal obsessed. I look outside myself for meaning and validation rather than sitting calmly and reflecting on my various internal states to find the thing that really appeals to the deep inside version of myself. I should probably sell all my crap, abandon my family, and pursue a life of solitary wondering through the wilds of America. Sounds pretty ridiculous, no? Our current batch of wisdom peddlers would likely condone this kind of meaningless pursuit. We live in a crazy culture that imposes all kinds of crazy expectations on us, expectations that we enthusiastically embrace in pursuit of fame and fortune. The pursuit of status is a total waste of a life, but you don't have to oppose wealth and live totally outside of society to reject the pursuit of status as the central pursuit of life.
My wife read me some stuff she wrote about the objectification of men for a class she is taking. The point of her assignment was about power and how the rising objectification of men shifts the power dynamic between men and women, but it could be read as a reflection on status. Her response was all about status. A bald man is lower status than a man with a full head of hair. All the vigor and vitality suggested by a full head of hair gives an objectified man loads of sexual status. There is a reason why all those boy bands emphasize the fullness and thickness of their hair. (For the record, I am certainly on the more fully coiffed end of the spectrum for men in their early 40s, a fact I must share to ensure that I get my full credit of status.) She discussed older men's delusion that twenty somethings are still attracted to them driving the effort to maintain as full a head of hair as possible. (I will not pursue any balding remedies by the way.) The objectified man must maintain his youth and vigor to retain the status position of his youth. These desperation these guys exude is pathetic.
Of course the highest status goes to those who reject the expectations of cultural norms and live life on their terms. A refusal to hide a culturally defined deficit (or being flippant about having a highly desirable status position) carries a power and status all its own. Defining yourself in your terms is the essence of cool. So reading a bunch of books granted social acceptance makes me a bit of a square. My list reading compulsion is nothing more than the transformation of my life in a bunch of checklists and randomly assigned arbitrary tasks. It may look like that, but I'm really just about reading good books. Judge away if you will. I really don't care.
Thursday, September 20, 2018
Drifting, not much progress
The Horse's Mouth is this year's Tender is the Night. I spent a month reading that not so very long owned book last year. I'm in the same reading dead zone right now. I'm just not making any progress on any book at the moment. I have The Horse's Mouth going, making very little progress, and The Eyre Affair (library ebook) also consuming some of my reading time. I basically did no reading over the weekend and very little this week. Life stuff is taking a good chunk of my time (spent Saturday night in a hotel and had basically zero time to read) and I've been watching baseball and football games rather than reading. My reading motivation is very much at low tide.
My motivation in general is at a pretty low ebb. I'm going to the gym out of habit more than a real desire to hit the weights, and I'm very much struggling with my marathon training. I'm getting in most of the longer runs, but I cut my long run on Saturday short (mostly to make sure we made it to DC for the Nationals game on time but I was struggling big time for most of the run) and I just flat out decided not to run on Monday morning. I was tired and my knee didn't feel all that great. I was much more consistent in my training last year. I kind of what to attribute my struggles more to the weather than any fitness or performance shortcoming. I've been greeted by muggy mornings pretty much every run. Who knows what conditions I'll be facing on Saturday morning as Florence rolls through. We've been spared a strong impact by the storms shift south, but rain and wind are still very much in the forecast. Twelve miles on the treadmill does not sound very appealing. Regardless of the conditions, I'm just not that excited to get out and run. Maybe a slower paced weekend will give me a chance to rest up and get my mind in a better place. I have to confess that I'm not bursting with optimism that this will be the case.
My motivation woes are closely tied to my long term residence in a pretty deep rut. I've been in what can best be thought of as a nice stable spot for the past few years. I've done a very good job of staying in place. My fitness, weight, and strength are all pretty much holding steady. That could be viewed as effectively resisting the eroding forces of time, but I feel like I'm just failing to really take the actions I need to get some kind of improvements in at least one of these areas of my life. I look at the scale and think that I may just be gaining muscle, but I look in the mirror and see the same of spare tire that I've been saying I want to get rid of for years. My books to read number has gotten smaller, but I don't really feel the progress. I was promoted at work at the beginning of the year, but I've been doing pretty much the same job for the last few years. It's gotten very stale.
I'm not really sure how to bump myself out of this long term equilibrium. I'm happy that I don't have a huge gut, but I'm frustrated by the lack of any positive movement towards a more trim frame. I've gotten no faster, I'm not noticeably stronger, and I still have to resist buying books. It's just all getting so old. Some cooler temperatures might make me feel faster running. Fewer family plans may allow me to get in more regular lifting workouts (which usually result in me being able to put more weight on the bar). Cutting out desserts may help me shed a pound or two. Some progress would be nice, but failure to face the inadequacy of goals like this to make me feel fulfilled may be the real problem.
These few pursuits I just highlighted have me looking for satisfaction and contentment in the future. When I lose the gut, I will be happy with my body. When I can run faster (exact speed not specified), I will be in shape. When I have read all my books, I will feel like I have really accomplished something. My life has been one long series of long term goals with some kind of promised salvation with the goal's accomplishment. Long term goals are fine, but I really need to find satisfaction and contentment with my current status. This is not the first time I've told myself that I need to find a way to focus on my current happiness rather than pursuing future joy, but I really have no idea of how to go about achieving this ideal state of satisfaction.
My motivation in general is at a pretty low ebb. I'm going to the gym out of habit more than a real desire to hit the weights, and I'm very much struggling with my marathon training. I'm getting in most of the longer runs, but I cut my long run on Saturday short (mostly to make sure we made it to DC for the Nationals game on time but I was struggling big time for most of the run) and I just flat out decided not to run on Monday morning. I was tired and my knee didn't feel all that great. I was much more consistent in my training last year. I kind of what to attribute my struggles more to the weather than any fitness or performance shortcoming. I've been greeted by muggy mornings pretty much every run. Who knows what conditions I'll be facing on Saturday morning as Florence rolls through. We've been spared a strong impact by the storms shift south, but rain and wind are still very much in the forecast. Twelve miles on the treadmill does not sound very appealing. Regardless of the conditions, I'm just not that excited to get out and run. Maybe a slower paced weekend will give me a chance to rest up and get my mind in a better place. I have to confess that I'm not bursting with optimism that this will be the case.
My motivation woes are closely tied to my long term residence in a pretty deep rut. I've been in what can best be thought of as a nice stable spot for the past few years. I've done a very good job of staying in place. My fitness, weight, and strength are all pretty much holding steady. That could be viewed as effectively resisting the eroding forces of time, but I feel like I'm just failing to really take the actions I need to get some kind of improvements in at least one of these areas of my life. I look at the scale and think that I may just be gaining muscle, but I look in the mirror and see the same of spare tire that I've been saying I want to get rid of for years. My books to read number has gotten smaller, but I don't really feel the progress. I was promoted at work at the beginning of the year, but I've been doing pretty much the same job for the last few years. It's gotten very stale.
I'm not really sure how to bump myself out of this long term equilibrium. I'm happy that I don't have a huge gut, but I'm frustrated by the lack of any positive movement towards a more trim frame. I've gotten no faster, I'm not noticeably stronger, and I still have to resist buying books. It's just all getting so old. Some cooler temperatures might make me feel faster running. Fewer family plans may allow me to get in more regular lifting workouts (which usually result in me being able to put more weight on the bar). Cutting out desserts may help me shed a pound or two. Some progress would be nice, but failure to face the inadequacy of goals like this to make me feel fulfilled may be the real problem.
These few pursuits I just highlighted have me looking for satisfaction and contentment in the future. When I lose the gut, I will be happy with my body. When I can run faster (exact speed not specified), I will be in shape. When I have read all my books, I will feel like I have really accomplished something. My life has been one long series of long term goals with some kind of promised salvation with the goal's accomplishment. Long term goals are fine, but I really need to find satisfaction and contentment with my current status. This is not the first time I've told myself that I need to find a way to focus on my current happiness rather than pursuing future joy, but I really have no idea of how to go about achieving this ideal state of satisfaction.
Friday, September 7, 2018
Long overdue update
I've started several posts updating my reading progress, but I end up getting pulled into other activities before I get a chance to finish them up and get them on the blog. Rather than going into detail about all that I've read since my last update, I will just say that I'm at 149 books to read (after a brief dip down to 148).
I spent most of August reading The Wise Man's Fear. It's a very long book. A fun and engaging read, I never felt like it was dragging despite the mountain of pages, that still took me a long time to finish. I read a couple of other books along with that one. I zipped through The Ghost Brigade to get it read before my online loan period ended. I waited three months to get that book. I didn't want to wait another 3 months to get another crack at it. I finished it on the last day of my two week loan period because I was trying to get all of Excession, my fourth Culture book, read before my vacation ended. I was very close to meeting that goal, I finished at home the day we got back. I also read a narrow philosophy book that I've had for ages. I believe I mentioned it in a previous post. I've kept thinking about Varieties of Presence weeks after finishing it up so it was a worthwhile read.
So I'm steadily working my way through my owned books while managing to avoid accumulating too many more of them. The online library loans have been an essential escape valve for the buying urge. I just finished World War Z. That's not something I would have picked up if it wasn't on that NPR list and it definitely not something that I would have purchased. The wonders of modern technology certainly have their place in an activity as ancient as reading. I have another ebook loan teed up and ready to go in my Kindle library. I may get started on that soon.
I have been reading one of my owned print books. The Horse's Mouth. I bought it at a library book sale more years ago than I can remember. It somehow made it through my book purge a couple of years ago. It's in remarkably good shape for a used library book. I suspect it was never checked out. I pulled off the library tags and it looks brand new. I am right around page 150 so I've built up enough momentum to keep plugging away until the end. It's not the best book, but it's amusing and not a particularly challenging read. It's not overly long either. That's definitely a point in its favor.
My next finished book gets me to my goal of reading 30 books this year. That either means I've read much more than I planned this year or I have been spending less time reading big, fat intimidating books this year. It's actually a bit of both. The books I have borrowed from the library have all been pretty quick reads. Those titles have added some nice bulk to my reading this year. I have also not been doing a nice job of avoiding the really nasty books on my shelf. I've finally gotten around to reading books I've owned for years and years, but I'm still slipping around the really hard stuff. Maybe later this year...
I spent most of August reading The Wise Man's Fear. It's a very long book. A fun and engaging read, I never felt like it was dragging despite the mountain of pages, that still took me a long time to finish. I read a couple of other books along with that one. I zipped through The Ghost Brigade to get it read before my online loan period ended. I waited three months to get that book. I didn't want to wait another 3 months to get another crack at it. I finished it on the last day of my two week loan period because I was trying to get all of Excession, my fourth Culture book, read before my vacation ended. I was very close to meeting that goal, I finished at home the day we got back. I also read a narrow philosophy book that I've had for ages. I believe I mentioned it in a previous post. I've kept thinking about Varieties of Presence weeks after finishing it up so it was a worthwhile read.
So I'm steadily working my way through my owned books while managing to avoid accumulating too many more of them. The online library loans have been an essential escape valve for the buying urge. I just finished World War Z. That's not something I would have picked up if it wasn't on that NPR list and it definitely not something that I would have purchased. The wonders of modern technology certainly have their place in an activity as ancient as reading. I have another ebook loan teed up and ready to go in my Kindle library. I may get started on that soon.
I have been reading one of my owned print books. The Horse's Mouth. I bought it at a library book sale more years ago than I can remember. It somehow made it through my book purge a couple of years ago. It's in remarkably good shape for a used library book. I suspect it was never checked out. I pulled off the library tags and it looks brand new. I am right around page 150 so I've built up enough momentum to keep plugging away until the end. It's not the best book, but it's amusing and not a particularly challenging read. It's not overly long either. That's definitely a point in its favor.
My next finished book gets me to my goal of reading 30 books this year. That either means I've read much more than I planned this year or I have been spending less time reading big, fat intimidating books this year. It's actually a bit of both. The books I have borrowed from the library have all been pretty quick reads. Those titles have added some nice bulk to my reading this year. I have also not been doing a nice job of avoiding the really nasty books on my shelf. I've finally gotten around to reading books I've owned for years and years, but I'm still slipping around the really hard stuff. Maybe later this year...
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