What if told you no one cares?
this is a not a reading challenge zone
Happy New Year! Mine kicked off twice: first at 7am, on two hours of sleep, grateful for past-me downing electrolyte sachets like tequila shots the night before. They say your thirties are the best decade of your life, and in terms of the quality of January 1st, I agree. I lived through too many New Year’s Days involving crying because my food delivery didn’t come or came but my state did not allow me to chew through a single chip to make the same mistakes. Still, even with five tonnes of sodium, calcium and potassium running through my veins, facing one of the most depressing, sun-free days of the year on two hours of sleep seemed like a challenge. I went back to sleep.
The second time I woke up, it was a much more acceptable 10:30 am, and in a state best described as delicate, I began catching up on all the content I’d missed over the past few days. In the last week of December, my friend was in town, and I decided to organise a small NYE party. It kept me - the most non-chill person alive - busy with minor mental breakdowns, with no time to go through any of the year-in-review lists.
Everywhere I looked, people were telling me how many books they’d read, their goals, and plans for next year’s reading. In the words of a poet:
The obsession with quantifying every pastime of our lives while existing under capitalism is not news. Scores of writers have explored this in ways more in-depth and eloquent than the capacity of my brain would ever allow me to, so without a deep dive, let me ask one question: How did we, as a society, manage to make reading a joyless task?
It reminds me of what Philip Galanes, the NYT "Social Q’s" columnist, said in The Daily’s “The Year in Wisdom” episode while discussing keeping resolutions:
If we had the imaginations to come up with resolutions that weren’t so crushingly banal — getting our steps in, going to the gym more, eating fewer carbs — I mean, things that are joyless and (…) punishing. (…) if we could incorporate some more joy into our resolutions and less drudge, then the gyms wouldn’t all be ghost towns on January 15.
After years (!) of writing about books, I’m unsure if I like the positioning reading copious amounts as something holy, profound, or the key to inner wisdom. Instead, making oneself accountable for finishing an arbitrary number of books creates yet another barrier to an activity that should be entertaining and interesting enough to never feel like a chore.
I don’t know how many books I read last year—probably fewer than when I got the second-best reader award at my local library at age eight. Probably fewer than when I was 27, jobless, single, and unaware of TikTok’s existence. “I wish I could read as much as you!” people said to me over the past year, while I was taking a month to go through Jenny Odell’s Saving Time, making me feel like a scammer. There were weeks when, instead of reading a single page, I spent evenings watching videos of dads crying while being surprised with puppies which, to me, is being a human at its finest.
And still, 2024 was the year when I got the most in-tune with what I like, reading for myself rather than for the image of a “certain kind of reader”. I finished more novels and personal essays and stayed away from hard hitting non-fiction mostly. I chose carefully enough to finish everything I picked up. And, as the new year begins and I am halfway through Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar - a debut making me grateful for literature existing - I feel giddy for everything else I might read this year, no matter whether it is going to take me two days or two months to finish.
What if I told you no one cares how many books you read last year? Would that make enjoying it a little easier?
ps. My only New Year’s Resolution is to do more mobility exercises because I’m turning 33 this year— known to everyone who has ever been indoctrinated by the Catholic Church as The Year of Jesus. I want to enter this mature age with oiled hip flexors because that actually sounds... fun and kinda hot? Thanks for asking.
never told you, but love reading YOU!
that screenshot was everything ty