I’ve been known to have sudden epiphanies in the stacks room and/or class, during which my eyes allegedly squint and then light up, and I exclaim, “I figured it out!” (People make fun of me for these moments, but I know they mean well.) I experienced one of those revelations this morning.
Over the past two years (or more), I’ve had a problem in my life that has caused guilt to continuously fester inside of me. What is my issue, you might ask? Don’t worry–it’s not as serious as I just made it sound. It is my total inability to read for fun.
It’s not even like I’m trying to force myself to read Moby Dick or anything. Even a junky teenage girl novel (my old guilty pleasure) would suffice, just to keep the literary juices flowing in my head. Any kind of reading is good reading, and I really believe that. So why can’t I do it?
Two reasons. First, I simply cannot concentrate. I don’t really know why, but the concept of reading word after word and focusing on following a plot line is totally daunting to me. It’s true that I read every book and poem for my AP English class, but that is out of my respect for the class, the teacher, and my education. Perhaps with all the effort that I’ve expended in reading every complex, literary masterpiece in high school, I just can’t bring myself to generate the mental energy or immersing myself in another novel. When I have free time, I just want to relax and give my energy to something like playing guitar and piano.
You might think at this point that laziness is the root of my problem, but that’s not quite it. The second reason why I can’t read for fun has to do with my somewhat warped sense of productivity. Anyone who knows me even the slightest bit knows that I like to spend all my time productively, but the catch is that my idea of a “productive” use of free time changes gradually. For example, I usually consider playing guitar and piano to be productive because I am furthering one of my creative skills, but sometimes I consider writing Hewitt Times articles to be more productive (Editor’s note: Yeah!!) because I’m not only honing my writing skills but giving back to my community. (I very rarely consider watching movies to be productive, but when I can’t resist any longer, I find a way to justify it to myself.)
And the hilariously ironic thing is that I don’t consider reading to be “free-time-productive,” even though logic indicates that it clearly is. Even though I used to absolutely love reading for fun, my brain immediately lumps together all books in the “schoolwork-productive” category, which I feel a desperate, carnal need to avoid whenever I have free time. One would think that my insane work ethic that drives me to exercise seven days a week would enable me to embrace the productive nature of reading and force myself to start looking at reading in a more favorable way – but for some reason, I can’t.
So, having come to the end of my very cyclical revelation – and the end of this article -I’ve finally decided that I shouldn’t let myself feel guilty anymore about not enjoying reading (among many other good things that I should be doing). I’d like to think that the desire to read for fun will come back to me on its own. Until then, I’m going to try to stop torturing myself about things that I think should be yet are not.
What do you think about Sarah’s commentary on reading for pleasure? Is it something you can’t spend the energy on once your homework it complete, or is it your favorite escape? Comment below!