Life is Flat
I officially quit hosting the Half Price Books Humble Book Club tonight. I was there and no one else was. Again. So I’m giving it up. Along with giving it up, I gave up attempting to read The World Is Flat. I liked the first chapter – a lot, actually. And then I couldn’t get into the rest of the book. It’s old hat. It’s no longer interesting. Yet, it’s far too recent to feel like history to me. Friedman talks about things I remember, but the memory isn’t exciting. I was bored.
I used to be one of those people that could not stop reading a book I started. Now, I find I start a lot of books and only finish about half of them. I’m still reading more books than I did before, I’m just a little less masochistic when it comes to suffering through things I just don’t have time for. There are too many phenomenal books out there to suffer through ones that either don’t suit my mood at the time or are flat out BAD. Friedman’s was a little bit of the first part, not really the second part, but a whole lot of just plain boring.
I find I’m bored more often than I’ve ever been before. The world has always been so intriguing to me that boredom was not much of a problem. With a TBR pile taller than Goliath and a bucket list a mile long, how could I possibly ever get bored? Add a kid to the mix, and man, who has time for bored?
But lately, I’m bored.
I simultaneously find myself missing the noise and the quiet. I’m desperate for a research project alone in a proper library and also nostalgic for downtown dancing of my college years. I want the glorious silence of noisy strangers in a crowded room. Except I’m a terrible dancer, I hate crowds, and noise makes me twitchy. Yet without it, I find myself being that annoying chatty person that doesn’t know what to do with my hands.
You would think that all this internal angst would make for some great writing stints, but I’m not so sure that’s the case. And with my reading enjoyment being on the decline the way it is, it’s hard for creativity to come out when there’s not a lot of it going in.
I’ve been reading gardening books. Yes, gardening books. What the heck? Am I 85? Apparently.
Anakalian Whims 
mgkingwrites said,
March 3, 2015 at 11:15 am
I’ve also recently left behind my stack of books in favor of plants. .. I’m currently reading Culpeper’s Complete Herbal from 1814 and contemplating a medicinal herb garden beyond my back porch. Maybe planting season is hardwired into our genetics : ) The books and the writing will still be sitting there waiting whenever you’re ready to get back to them.