There are three bookmarks on my nightstand and every one of them is an accusation.
Tim Wu's The Age of Extraction. Christian and Griffiths' Algorithms to Live By. Burroughs' Naked Lunch. Three books, all open, all half-loved, like three lovers who know about each other and have decided to stay anyway, out of pity (one of the bookmarks is a supermarket receipt, and yes, she noticed), but I am digressing...
Let's call this what it is. I'm not a reader anymore, I'm Netflix in human form. And not even the binge-watching kind. Binge-watching was at least monogamous, obsessive, loyal until four in the morning. No, I do the new thing: one episode of this, one episode of that, rotate, sample, never commit. My nightstand has a Continue Watching row.
Twenty minutes with Wu, who is explaining, a few chapters in, that somebody out there is strip-mining my attention. Fascinating stuff. Anyway, next. Twenty minutes with Christian and Griffiths, whose early chapters are literally about when to stop sampling new options and commit to the best one you've found. I underlined it. Then I put the book down and picked up a different one. I underlined my own diagnosis and switched channels. Christ.
And then Burroughs. Sweet, filthy Burroughs, the only one who doesn't mind. Naked Lunch has no plot to betray, no order to respect; you can enter it from any position and it likes it that way. It's the only book on the pile built for exactly this kind of promiscuity. Here's the twist: I despise it. I despise it with a purity I normally reserve for wellness influencers. But I paid for it, and a book bought is a book finished, no refunds, no parole. So my healthiest current relationship is with a filthy hallucination from 1959 that I hate and refuse to leave. Somewhere a couples therapist just felt a chill.
And the ugly truth is this: I never finish. Any of them. Twenty minutes each, swap, twenty minutes, swap. Three books getting my attention and not one of them getting the ending. Make of that what you will.
So, fine. Recovery plan. Pick one book. Finish it. Put the other two in a drawer. Lock the drawer. Post the key to a stranger. Read like it's 1994 and there is nothing else on.
Tonight I start. One book, front to back, faithful as a labrador.
Right after I check what the other two are doing.
Autoplay in three, two, one. Fuck.
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