16.1.10

There's Got to be a Way

Does anyone know how to read multiple books at the same time? Or to read and knit simultaneously? Or to read (properly, not listen) while washing dishes? Or how to motivate myself to do any of these things more individually?

You know, I just read an article about the "Quarterlife Crisis" about how people my age have so much potential and they've been told they can do whatever they want and then they all feel like failures when they just go to an office job every day and they're paralyzed with indecision about whether to travel or have babies or buy a house or jump off a cliff. And in the larger sense that the article is talking about, my basic response is like, "cry me a river, you whiny bitches," because you do the best you can at a given time and if it sucks you do something else that sucks less, etc., etc. Not to say I don't know what they're talking about, but if you want to do something like travel, do it, don't dither about it, because once you're actually travelling, dithering gets you precisely nowhere.

But in the smaller things I admit I kinda see their point. I have four or five books I'm reading right now, and I can think of at least four or five more that I've been meaning to start (or in some cases finish) since forever ago. It's the feeling I used to get on Christmas morning when I was a kid when I couldn't decide which toy to play with first. (Actually, even when I was a kid, it was quite often which book I would read first.) So right now, I want to be reading all these books, and I also want to watch the movie I got from the library, and a movie I got for Christmas that I haven't seen yet, and I'm working on a new knitting project that's very exciting (if you're really bored or really addicted to yarn) and what I ought to be doing is washing my damn dishes so I can cook some dinner, but on the other hand it's raining outside and nothing makes me happy like hearing rain outside when I'm cuddled up in bed, but will I enjoy it as much with my room the mess that it is, and also I've got some good music playing, so where does that fit in?

I know, I know. Cry me a river.

The article mentioned that back in the day, when career options were more fixed (housewivery or secretary school for girls, professions determined on aptitude, class, and parental background for boys), twentysomethings didn't have this problem, blah blah blah. Then maybe people got midlife crises when they realized they weren't doing what they wanted to be doing. I don't know about the mid-life crisis part of the analogy, but I'll tell you when I never have trouble deciding what to read or watch or listen to: when I've got a paper due.

I read a quotation in high school that struck me as brilliant. I had to do a search for who said it (that part clearly didn't stick with me: it's attributed to Mary Wilson Little), but I reproduce it for you now:

"There is no fun in having nothing to do. The fun is in having lots to do and not doing it."

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