I still read books, but not like in the old days. Nowadays, I devour books like a man scrolling through social media, hopping from one thing to the next without fully immersing himself in any of it. I’m juggling eight books at the moment, and it takes all the willpower I’ve got to resist the temptation of the ones waiting in line.
I’m not boasting. This isn’t anything to be proud of. I can’t seem to concentrate on one book at a time. I read ten pages here, a chapter there, and then on to the next book. And even when I settle for these meager portions, a nagging sense of FOMO distracts me - the fear that I might miss the book I ought to be reading next. It’s like no book can hold my attention for long.
That being said, upon reflection, I can discern some common threads among these diverse texts. The mysteries of nature and the forces that shape it - these themes are prevalent in The Walker’s Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs and After the Ice. Poems That Make Grown Men Cry and Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox focus on the emotional resonance of art and ideas. Meanwhile, Echopraxia and Grotesquerie pull back the veil on the darker, uglier aspects of the human experience.
Out of all of these, Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox is the one that demands and deserves my full attention, and Poems That Make Grown Men Cry delivers on its promise of tears.
I was having a hard time figuring out how to wrap this up, but then I realized that I read books like I read everything else - on all kinds of devices, from books to phones to eReaders. It’s both good and bad. On the one hand, I’ve got all the options in the world to read whatever I want. On the other hand, my attention span is shot to hell.