Going Paperless 3 – Do I Have A Word Addiction?

I’m learning a lot about myself through this simple experiment of trying to go paperless.  I buy probably 100 times as many words as I actually read – and that guess might even need to go as high as a 1,000 times.  After buying my Kindle I decided to only purchase Kindle reading in a just-in-time-to-read fashion – no stocking up.  I’ve known for years my eyes are bigger than my reading habit stomach when it comes to buying books and magazines. 

I could have immediately filled up my Kindle with hundreds of free classic books by going to the elegant web site Feedbooks.  I could have jammed it with blogs, magazines and newspaper subscriptions.  Instead I bought two books, subscribed to Time Magazine, bought a few issues of my favorite SF&F magazines, and download a couple dozen sample chapters of books I was considering buying.

It quickly became apparent that even this light load was too much.  I read one of the books, started the second, read some of stories in the magazines, and a couple sample chapters.  I’m struggling to keep up with the magazine reading because I’ve already gotten six issues of Time. [By the way, for some reason I’m getting way more out of Time by reading on the Kindle than I ever did out of the paper copy.  I think photos and ads must be distracting.]  Because I have such a backlog of paper books and magazines on my bookshelves to read, I don’t read on my Kindle full time yet.  I wished all my reading material was on my Kindle because it’s easier to read E-ink over most of the paper formatted pages I have stacking my shelves.  Also, I could monitor my reading flow better.

People compare finding data on the Internet to drinking from a fire hose.  I think that metaphor is outdated.  I think it’s like lighting a cigarette from the exhaust of the Saturn V booster.  Trying to keep up my daily data input is like being the little robot, Number 5 from the movie Short Circuit.  I keep telling myself, “More data, more data,” but I can’t handle it.  I’m addicted to words and I need to get control.

So weeks ago I decided to go paperless as a start.  I’m tossing all my magazine renewals as I get them.  I’m cleaning out the stacks of back issues.  And I’ve begun to study the online editions of my favorite magazines to see how much I can practically read online.  (See my new Magazines section.) 

I’ve quickly learned that I actually don’t read as much as I want to, or think I do.  I’m like a squirrel that hides a thousand nuts for each one I eat.  I could save myself a lot of time and energy by breaking this compulsive habit.  This experiment to get rid of paper magazines and newspapers is teaching me I need to change my personality.  Reading is good, but wanting to read everything is bad.  Being God and knowing about every sparrow must be an awful stressful profession.

I need to find my reading Walden and channel Henry David Thoreau for awhile.  I have no intention of giving up on words altogether, but I need to go on a diet.  My first impulse is try to read only one short story or essay a day.  The idea was to daily meditate on one inspiring work.  Even this might be too much, because I’d like to read a really good story and then contemplate it by writing a blog post.  That would take several hours of work, and I don’t have that much time every day to spare.

If I can ever get down to such a contemplative reading habit I might find I can only handle one good work every three or four days.  Is it better to nibble on a lot of reading potato chips or to just have one good cerebral meal?

I actually get 40-50 books read each year by listening to audio books while doing other things, so I’m not worried about full length books and novels.  See “How Audible.com Changed My Life.”  I’m concerned with magazines, newspapers, blogs, RSS feeds, web sites, emails, and all the other sources of short lengths of words I gorged myself on daily while storing up even more thinking tomorrow I’ll be reading even faster than I do today. 

It’s like I’ve got my own rat race of digital consumption going.  Since pledging to go paperless I’ve been cleaning out my email inbox and unsubscribing to lots of newsletters, lists, announcements and web sites.  I started visiting LifeHacker but not subscribing.

Reading was much easier when I was a poor kid and I got all my books from the library.  I didn’t own books then, just had a stack of four or five sitting on my bedside table.  Then I grew up and got a job that financed buying all the books I wanted.  After that came the Internet with googles of free words, and I’ve reached a stage in my life where I’m drowning in reading.  Damn, I’ve got to find a way to manage that Saturn V exhaust of data addiction.

Going Paperless 4

Jim