When I was younger…well, there were only Palm Pilots back then, so it’s a bit unfair, but I’d prefer physical books, and if I were doing active reading then it’d usually be with a physical book.

Reading digital books now requires using a device that often has access to Youtube or something else that’s shorter and snappier and yet pulls hours upon hours out of my life.

And as I’ve gotten older…I haven’t read read a book in years. Is it a lack of attention span? Yes, which makes me feel sad and ashamed and so fucking frustrated because I could, I could read long books as a kid and now…I can’t.

It’s also that I have more to do: laundry, cleaning, work, cooking, errands, exercise… So there’s less time to sit down and read, or if I do, it feels increasingly hedonistic and therefore wrong to just do one thing at once. If I can multitask then shouldn’t I?

Audiobooks are both a godsend and a curse. I can actually consume books again! But I’m locked into the ease of it.

Actively choosing to doing just the one thing, for myself, is far harder than it ought to be.