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Friday, May 22, 2009

my passion for reading, where have you gone?

This happens sometimes. I go through phases. I go through phases with pretty much everything in my life, with a few solid constants that don't seem to change. I'd hoped that reading had once again (as it used to be) become one of those constants -- the desire to dive into other people's worlds and explore new ideas and thoughts. It used to be a constant before I started university, but then there was less time, and more reading, and I started to hate it.

I don't hate it now, but I seem to have hit a low ebb with my passion for reading again, from a high during March where I couldn't stop reading, even if I didn't love the book. This is coinciding with a high water mark in my passion for playing mindless computer games, and I wonder if there's some sort of causal relationship -- I can correlate it for sure, but I wonder if both are caused by higher levels of stress and anxiety in my life, or whether the gaming itself makes me less interested in reading. With reading I think, but with playing computer games (I'm currently having a lot of fun with Atari's Locomotion, which is not a new game but an old standby for me) I just act and zone out for the better part of an hour. Or, erm, more.

So I am going to put down Winspear's Birds of a Feather which I was enjoying after all, but not enough to keep me thoroughly engaged. I'm going to leave everything on the TBR list that I'm not particularly excited about, except for the ILLOs that are sitting there (one's a comic book, the other is a romance novel, and I think both I can get into; they'll be fast and exciting, and not particularly deep; deep is not what I need right now). But most importantly, I've ordered me some Terry Pratchett, because I'm actually quite certain Equal Rites is just what I need.

4 comments:

Liyana said...

I know what you mean! Sometimes I just need to take some time to read a book I actually love to get me back in the groove. :D

Unknown said...

I haven't read Equal Rites yet, but it's Pratchett. I don't think I can go wrong. If it's not right, I've also got some manga waiting in the wings. Somehow I'll get back on track, I'm sure...

Nan said...

I think that computer games or even computer time can actually cause stress and anxiety. It creates a sort of artificial world of rushrushbusybusy, and reading is such a completely different thing. You sit, you're quiet, life slows down. I think it is sometimes hard to slow oneself if one has been goinggoing. Just my 2¢. Oh, and the other thing is I never, never stay with a book if I'm not thrilled. This is the one thing in life which should be fun with no demands from anyone else. :<)

Unknown said...

Nan - you are so right. I still have a lot of guilt associated with putting down a book once I've started it, especially if I don't hate it. But the days of feeling guilty about not reading are behind me, along with university, I surely hope. Or they should be.

Liyana - thank you for the awards! That's lovely, and very kind of you. :)