I used to read fairly voraciously as a child; nothing like the kids who could devour a Harry Potter book between sunrises, but a respectable "novel every 2-3 weeks", somewhat above my grade level.
I can remember almost the exact instant I fell off: being dissatisfied with a particular turn in a YA novel in 9th grade, and the odd moments that had been filled with page-turning suddenly became designated for sketching and doodling (at the height of deviantArt's power).
I don't think I finished a single class-read novel in high school; hated Wuthering Heights and beloved (on vibes) L'Etranger alike are a blur. (Still aced the AP exams.) I knew it was really over when I had to drop a classical literature course in college because I couldn't keep up with the readings.
I've a few dozen unfinished books in the ~15 years since, and less than a dozen finished ones. 1Q84 has been a multi-year odyssey.
I've introspected about what's gone "wrong". My reading speed is quite slow, and has never progressed, which I think is a major part of it. I often become distracted, stopping a little too frequently to mull things over - really, squaring the reading with my preconceived notions, which was not as much of an issue when I was younger and had fewer of them.
I also stress over finding time to begin reading in the first place, and about being disconnected from reality when I'm in a book's headspace.
I'd love to know if anyone's had a similar experience and can boast a "recovery" (and how they managed).
I noticed you listed all fiction here. Do you ever try reading nonfiction? You might just need something more concrete to hold your attention rather than fictitious characters in imaginary scenarios.
Another thing I suggest to lots of people is to try audiobooks. It's not the same as traditional reading, but it's way better than not reading at all. Sometimes I use a screen reader on my laptop and follow along with my eyes. I've noticed this allows me to read something for much longer and the comprehension feels stronger.
Also, I wouldn't worry about finishing books if that's hard for some people. If something doesn't hold your interest, there's no point in slogging through it just so you can earn your imaginary 'finished' trophy. Especially for fiction.
>You might just need something more concrete to hold your attention rather than fictitious characters in imaginary scenarios.
For me this is the opposite! Those imaginary scenarios are often designed with a certain pull in mind. Dramatic tension and all that. Reading non-fiction about fringe mushroom foraging is super interesting, but when i eventually put the book down for the day, that lingering pull isn't there... who knows when i'll get back to it.
I had a similar drop off in high school. For me it happened when the volume of assigned reading, particularly summer reading, crowded out all of the reading for pleasure. I just never started back up after that, despite fits and starts over the years.
I decided that I wanted to change about three years ago.
The first thing that helped was finding a book that I really wanted to finish and that I saw as a challenge. I tend to be motivated by challenges. Instead of “I want to get back to regular reading”, it was “I want to finish this one book no matter what”.
Second, I bought an e-reader that let me set the margins and text size to old man settings, such that there are only a few lines per screen. My mind wanders easily, especially when it feels like there’s an ocean of text on a page, so less text and frequent page turns helped me keep my momentum up and avoid constant wandering and re-reading.
As much as we all hate commutes here, getting a job that has me back in the office has had a silver lining in that time on the train is scheduled, routine time where I can’t do something else. I made the decision that it would not be dead time, so I religiously put my phone in my bag, get my book out, and focus on it for the 40 minutes until my destination.
I am a relatively slow reader like you, but much like exercise, sticking to a routine has meant slow but noticeable improvement. I think of myself as a book reader again, and I’ve made it over the hump where sustained concentration feels effortful. You can do it!
I read a ton so I can’t really relate directly; but I will say to try out thrillers. Most are written to keep you reading, because you want to see what happens next.
Personally this usually means 20th century detective fiction (Chandler, Hammett, etc.) but there are a lot of modern writers that fit the same bill. Harlan Coben is a good example, if a bit “generic thriller.”
I did read a lot as a kid, "between sunrises" too as you so beautifully put it, then dropped off. When wanting to start again, much later, it took me a while to find what kind of books elicited that response. As an adult, turns out to be... romance? I would not have bet any money on that, lol.
I do read pretty slowly now, as in, reading some paragraphs multiple times, going back to double check things, looking up some words maybe. Still, as long as i never put the book down i make decent progress in a day...
I made a “recovery” and unfortunately the method I used is the boring one - discipline. I found that I was using social media to distract myself from anxiety, so I started going for a half hour run first thing in the morning, followed by an hour of reading. This required me to get up very early, but I found that the leftover endorphins from running helped me focus on the book and not the anxiety.
And don’t bother finishing 1Q84, you could read like four better Murakami books for the same time investment
I think this easily could have been me if I didn't have a gnawing hunger to find weird niche books that seem interesting to me and have very few "opinions" about them online. I think it was at 19 that I discovered I just hate reading anything that is saturated with opinions and reviews, even if "complex" "challenging", a "cult favorite", which was my precursor to this (and I did enjoy that phase while it lasted). Sometimes I go to the library and carry a stack of books, read the first page, and put it back if I don't want to go on. Every once in a while, I get a random interest in something that is indeed saturated, and I do read it, but also drop it when I lose interest without guilt. Doing anything because everyone else who is similar to me is doing it never worked for me, don't see a reason why it should work in reading, and finding something good to read can be as simple as going in a rabbit hole of search. For reference, I'd say I completed over a thousand "serious" (non Harry Potter/YA/"easy read") books, including nonfiction, and I'd say there is almost an equal number of books I did not finish.
About a half a dozen who were nearby when the bridge collapsed, and, of those, only two actually missed seeing it happen. *Everyone* heard it, though: a great roaring waterfall of concrete and steel that echoed across the derelict plains for minutes and miles. The local folk would have told you that it was the river flooding a month earlier what had done it; that, and the heat of that summer havign roasted the old tarmac to pieces. But that wouldn't have been the truth; not entirely. Their hindsight failed to reach past a few preceding seasons, the road's slow degradation after years of use and somewhat fewer years of maintenance as far beyond the horizon as the sea. The columns that supported the span, plunging deep into the river below it, had had great, sweeping cracks for as long as the youth who periodically swam out to tag them could remember. The chain link fence that ran along the bridge's sides had rusted through to a twisted ragged heap even before then.
The river the bridge had spanned was the _____, and the bridge itself - part of an interstate, from back when there had been states - had linked the northern and southern portions of Jefferson County (which still existed). Thankfully, no one was on it when it finally gave up the ghost. (For a few days, the Hughes of just south of the old rails were worried for their son, Kurt, who had failed to return home that evening; but he eventually turned up a week later, having spent the time with his girlfriend.)
The loss of the ancient connector meant 50 miles extra travel for anyone who wanted to get from Dodge to Shelley, already a 70-mile trek. With gas so hard to come by, that was no small thing. Rebuilding it would have been ideal, but the fact was that there was no one around who could possibly manage such a project; most of that expertise was locked up in Atlanta, New York-Jersey, Charlotte, and St. Louis, and not one of the territories so mentioned was on good terms with small, flyover, Sep-sympathizing Jefferson County. Besides that, there were scant funds for construction equipment and materials anyway; the curse of Jefferson's self-sufficiency knocking unwelcome on the doors of Jeffersonian hearts more often than any stranger. The bridge would not be rebuilt. So, after the commotion of the actual collapse had died down, and the locals had ceased stopping by to gaze at the ruins and shake their heads and scowl, the structure, half-submerged stone monolith, lay placid and abandoned.
None of this is really important, except for the part about the 50-mile detour. That... that is actually very important.
---
The Biker learned of the bridge's collapse well before reaching Jefferson County. For all that had broken down from neglect or sabotage or accident in this land over the years, it seemed that the grapevine was as resilient as ever. The proprietor of a public house - the one he'd stopped in at when it came time to transfer some of his precious fuel from an emergency tank to the hot rod proper - was the bearer of the bad news. He'd thanked her, pulled out the Handspring loaded with a bootleg map app, and started searching for a new route. This one wouldn't do, it was likely to be more of a still-glowing crater than a road; and that one, that one ran right through hardcore Sep territory. And this one... No, he'd definitely run out of fuel. ...Maybe the second, again? If he could be quick, go at the right time of day... Too risky, his common sense told him. Nonsense, said the impulsive part that had gotten him out of (and, admittedly, into) many a hairy situation. T could outrun any trouble he might find. And he wouldn't find any, because he would be very, very careful. 'You don't got a choice, bub. Gas isn't cheap OR plentiful.'
"Shit."
He hit the Handspring's power button and gingerly slid it back into his leather side saddle, and delayed his oncoming foolishness by taking the moment to glance around like he was looking for someone who was looking for him. Other than the pub, a converted vinyl-sided colonial, there was nothing but the coiled curves of cracked suburban roads and sidewalks; the mounded plots that lay along them, where the foundations of dozens of long-dismantled domiciles had once stood; and each building's replacements, bunches of grass and scrub, waving occasionally in the odd and rare breeze, which were staking out their own homesteads.
I would take this opportunity to chastise you for merely the Wikipedia article for Accelerando tripping my chronophobia/technophobia and giving me an existential crisis, but if I'm being honest, IHNMAIMS, Battle Angel Alita, Space, Inc., and BattleTanx got to me first.
Oil is the medium of time manipulation magic. Created through ancient sacrificial rituals, it is is a substance that can be used to create aging/rot-retarding barriers, or refined into derivatives that increase the rate of plant growth and mechanical work. To be handled with care, as extended contact can lead to corruption of the body, as well as increased susceptibility to fire elemental spells.
Simple rituals can render an inferior product from most living things; the time-manipulation abilities of such substances will be weaker, but the substance will be safer to handle, and can even be imbibed (this is a double-aged sword, reducing one's vital life force while increasing one's bodily proportions to that of a toddler).
-Me, "Early Morning Bed Thoughts", a few months ago.
There's actually a useful and quite generic metaphor to be excavated here. I would just tell you what it is, but I think you'll more enjoy finding it for yourself.
To me, it's just another example of what the poor and marginalized in this country have known for generations, finally catching up to the comfortable class. It's easier to count the institutions that AREN'T pay-to-play, especially those associated with the law and courts.
Know what's fun? Facing down a trained attorney as a pro se litigant in small claims court. Want to beat the 70-90% loss rate for pro se litigants in a forum that was originally designed specifically for pro se litigants? Hire a lawyer, lol.
Small claims, true to the name, is the lowest of low stakes. It's downhill from there.
Humoring the notion, America is a capitalist enterprise that put on the religious and humanist airs that were conveniently en vogue at the time of its founding, and which it always goes back to when its economic reality becomes too onerous. The contradiction baked into our existence is felt subconsciously by most, and there is a psychological toll taken in knowing that your society is built, in part, on hypocrisy, and having to be vigilant for when the other shoe inevitably drops, so that you can at least get out alive.
The City and It's Uncertain Walls - Yet another Murakami novel that I haven't finished, despite really enjoying it. I was reading it during the summer, though, and it's clearly a winter novel. And in that vein, the vibe is immaculate. I should pick it back up.
While We're Young - KL Walther's gender-flipped Ferris Bueller-like, picked up on a whim during a minor existential crisis (it's completely different from my usual fare). What it says on the tin. The sex scene at the end is only slightly less uncomfortable than the one at the end of Contact Harvest. However, combined with a read-through of Edward Bloor's Tangerine, there's a fascinating comparative lit angle to approach them from. They feature starkly different illustrations of the American suburb, perhaps a useful analogue of the real-life and fraught disconnect between the stable and comfortable and uprooted and desperate Americas. Both stories feature intertwined families; one story is focused on matters of love and the other is focused on matters of violence. Perhaps I was just touched by my personal experience with both dynamics.
Death of the Demon (a Hanne Wilhelmsen novel by Anne Holt) - Really enjoyed this Scandinavian Ghost in the Shell fanfic.
>Because leaded gas is the same thing as people using a new technology like AI.
It's not the same, but it's not necessarily any good. I've observed the following, after ~2 weeks of free ChatGPT Plus access (as an artist who is trying to give the technology a chance, despite the vociferous (not vicious, geez) objections of many of my peers):
It's addictive (possibly on purpose). AI systems frequently return imperfect outputs. Users are trained to repeat until the desired output comes. Obviously, this can be abused by sophisticated-enough systems, pushing outputs that are JUST outside the user's desire so that they have to continue using it. This could conceivably happen independent of obvious incentives like ads or pay credits; even free systems are incentivized to use this dark pattern, as it keeps the user coming back, building a habit that can be monetized later.
Which leads into: it's gambling. It's a crapshoot whether the output will be what the user desires. As a result, every prompt is like a slot pull, exacerbated by the wait to generate an answer. (This is also why the generation is shown being typed/developed; the information in those preliminary outputs is not high-enough fidelity or presented in a readable way; instead, they're bits of visual stimuli meant to inure your reward system to the task, similar to how Robinhood's stock prices don't simply change second-to-second, but "roll" to them with a stimulating animation).
That's just a small subset of the possible effects on a user over time. Far from freeing users to create, my experience has been one of having to fight ChatGPT and its Images model, as well as the undesirable behaviors it seems to be trying to draw out of me.
I don't think there is anything that can be said to actually change people's minds here. Because people that are against it aren't interested in actually engaging with this new technology.
People that are interest in it and are using it on a daily basis see value in it. There are now hundreds of millions of active users that find a lot of value in using it.
The other factor here is the speed of adoption, which I think has seriously taken a lot of people by surprise. Especially those trying this wholesale boycot campaign of AI. For that reason people artificially boycotting this new technology are imo deluded.
If it were advocating for Open source models it would be far more reasonable.
>People that are interest in it and are using it on a daily basis see value in it.
I'm one of them. I've got plenty of image gens to prove it (and I'd have more if OpenAI hadn't killed Dall-E labs with almost no heads-up). I'm telling you that I still think contemporary implementations of the technology are just this side of vile, and that I hope that the industry collapses soon, so that grassroots start-ups with actual moral scruples, and a desire to enable rather than control their customers, have the chance to emerge and compete. Also: for said customers, such a collapse wouldn't even be THAT different from the way in which tech companies currently snatch away tools on a whim.
> Because people that are against it aren't interested in actually engaging with this new technology.
How do you know that? Are you just assuming anyone who has something negative to say just hasn't used it?
In my case it's absolutely not true. I've used it near daily for coding tasks and a handful of times for other random writing or research tasks. In a few cases I've actively encouraged a few others to try it.
From direct experience I can say it's definitely not ready for prime time. And I like the way most companies are trying to deploy it even less.
There is something there with LLMs, but the way they're being productized and commercialized does not seem healthy. I would rather see more research, slow testing and trials, and a clear understanding of the potential negatives for society before we simply dump it into the public sphere.
The only mind I see not willing to be changed is yours when you characterize any push back against AI as simply ignorant haters. You are clearly wrong about that.
>There is something there with LLMs, but the way they're being productized and commercialized does not seem healthy. I would rather see more research, slow testing and trials, and a clear understanding of the potential negatives for society before we simply dump it into the public sphere.
There's something incredibly harmful about this kind of mentality.
It's a weird kind of paternalizing, diminutive, and degrading view of common people.
This reminds me of my as-yet-unfulfilled ambition to use 4chan's ad system for a public art project of some sort. The price/reach ratio seems pretty reasonable, and you pretty much know where your banner ads are going to end up (on the asshole of the internet).
I wonder, were any sort of uprising against public advertising to take hold, if they'd "volunteer" some existing ad space to go to artistic endeavors or something. Like affordable housing set-asides, but so you can look at something culturally-enriching instead of having to watch That Damn Progressive Ad (you know the one) for the nth time.
I can remember almost the exact instant I fell off: being dissatisfied with a particular turn in a YA novel in 9th grade, and the odd moments that had been filled with page-turning suddenly became designated for sketching and doodling (at the height of deviantArt's power).
I don't think I finished a single class-read novel in high school; hated Wuthering Heights and beloved (on vibes) L'Etranger alike are a blur. (Still aced the AP exams.) I knew it was really over when I had to drop a classical literature course in college because I couldn't keep up with the readings.
I've a few dozen unfinished books in the ~15 years since, and less than a dozen finished ones. 1Q84 has been a multi-year odyssey.
I've introspected about what's gone "wrong". My reading speed is quite slow, and has never progressed, which I think is a major part of it. I often become distracted, stopping a little too frequently to mull things over - really, squaring the reading with my preconceived notions, which was not as much of an issue when I was younger and had fewer of them.
I also stress over finding time to begin reading in the first place, and about being disconnected from reality when I'm in a book's headspace.
I'd love to know if anyone's had a similar experience and can boast a "recovery" (and how they managed).