reading what you want to read

I’m fresh off seeing video of my brother set a pie-eating record in Portland, and I’m almost sick just from observing it. He’s still pretty thin at 35, and I guess his metabolism can handle it, but it was a tough thing to watch. If we see others yawn, we yawn. If we see one of those waterboarding demonstrations, we wince. And if we see people eat too many pies, we are nauseated.

Just a random thought on which to end the night… There are about 25 books pulled off my shelves and lying on the coffee table and a couple of chairs and a desk. These are not just books that I really want to read immediately, but books that each have a justification for why they must be read immediately. Several of them are either gifts, from authors or fans of the book, which I feel guilty about not having read yet.

But I can’t read them all right now, obviously.

If you’re still in graduate school, make sure to appreciate the fact that you’re still able to read around as you see fit. If you become busier in your writing that is one thing that gets sacrificed pretty quickly. Most of my reading these days is directly related either to teaching or to something I have promised to write, so that I must choose both teaching and writing assignments more carefully in the future (I’ve tended to just say “yes” to everything that comes my way, and it won’t be possible for too much longer).

There is room for maybe one exception at a time, and Gibbon is my current big exception just as it was the Inferno back in the early days of this blog.

Ortega has a nice line about why only young people are really able to master difficult systems of philosophy: “One needs the good will of those early years, when good will is all one has.”

Related thoughts…

Someone told me about a study of older people which turned up the interesting result that their most vivid memories were from their 20’s. If true it doesn’t surprise me. Your 20’s are the most dramatic intersection of emotional intensity and adult issues. Impressions aren’t quite as strong later on.

Yukio Mishima, in his novel Runaway Horses, has a character in his late 30’s, about whom he makes an interesting remark… He says that people in their late 30’s imagine that they’re still pretty close to their late 20’s, but only because the events of the ensuing ten years have left almost no strong impression on them. It’s a slight overstatement, but not by much.

Another observation… Freud talks somewhere about how poets are the ones who keep daydreaming, even though most people stop daydreaming when they become adults. When I read that I was about 22 and had no idea what he was talking about, since I was daydreaming as much as ever at that point. But just this year I noticed that I have to force myself to do it, such as when brainstorming. You lose the energy and free time to daydream as much– unless you’re a professional poet, I guess.