Written in 2015.
The bookworm mutation
A new film had just been released, based on a book I had not read.
That was normal for me. I love films, and for years I had been content to let adaptations stand in for the books they were based on. Watching was easier. Faster. Convenient.
At some point, that stopped feeling satisfying.
A book that takes days to read, compressed into a couple of hours, rarely reflects what the author intended. So this time, I decided to read first and watch later. That decision exposed something else I had been avoiding. I struggled to concentrate. I fell asleep, even in the middle of the day.
The problem was not reading. It was relevance.
The last book I had finished quickly was practical, short, and immediately applicable. I was engaged because it connected directly to my life. Once I noticed that, I started reading differently. I looked for ideas I could apply rather than pages I could get through. The concentration came back.
Around the same time, I began to look honestly at how I was spending my attention. Television filled my days. Films filled my weekends. Hours disappeared without leaving much behind.
So I started cutting back. Fewer shows. Fewer films. Not as a punishment, just as a choice. The time that came back went into reading, writing, exercise, and making things. Whatever remained belonged to my family.
I did not stop loving film. I just stopped letting it consume the space where other things were trying to grow.
Learning to read again turned out to be less about books and more about deciding what deserved my attention.