I read three books in 2020 and one of them was Gabbie Hanna. Hi, it's Divya G. What does
the g stand for? The g stands for 'god I just don't know how to read anymore'. Here's a
graph of my reading slump. This all follows a gradual decline kind of like the popularity
of BuzzFeed when all the good members started leaving the cult. I look at my pile of books
that I haven't read and the stories untold and I'm like damn. I really abandoned you
didn't I? Like these books have been orphaned. Like if these books could talk they would
have called childline by now. *skit*
NEW GUY ARRIVES NEW GUY: Hey! Hey... hey, uh hi!
MIDDLE-AGED MAN: I ain't seen a new face around here in a while.
HANK BLUE: Mmmhmm yeah! NEW GUY: So what's poppin'?
HANK BLUE: Hmm? Oh don't mind me, just watching. < OLD CLASSIC: Oi! Respect your elders!
NEW GUY: Hm? What do you mean? MIDDLE-AGED MAN: I'd make yourself comfortable
mate. Back of the queue. OLD CLASSIC: Bunch of whippersnappers don't
have any respect for people nowadays. MIDDLE-AGED MAN: You're ain't getting through
in a long time, sonny. OLD CLASSIC: They're so entitled.
NEW GUY: Ok boomer. OLD CLASSIC: You watch your tongue young boy.
You remember who you are. Who made you. How you got here!
MIDDLE-AGED MAN: Some of us haven't been touched in a long time.
OLD CLASSIC: Back in my day we didn't have these many bloody queues.
NEW GUY: You mean you missed the good old days of slavery then?
OLD CLASSIC: I'd be respected back in my day HANK BLUE: Bababooey.
OLD CLASSIC: Picked up off the shelf in less than a day now I have to bloody wait like
everyone else! MIDDLE-AGED MAN: I miss the feeling of her
fingers down my spine. OLD CLASSIC GRUMBLES
NEW GUY: Oh yeah if you love the good old days so much now why didn't you go back to
where you came from? WH Smith. HANK BLUE: Bababooey
MIDDLE-AGED MAN: the gentle caress as she opens me up-
OLD CLASSIC: None of this censorships. Dilly dallying
HANK BLUE: Bababooey OLD CLASSIC: Actually have some sort of self-worth
HANK BLUE: Bababooey OLD CLASSIC: Unlike you.
HANK BLUE HUMS OLD CLASSIC: Full of gibberish nonsense
HANK BLUE: Bababooey MIDDLE-AGED MAN: The way she fingers each
page-
Here's a list of reasons that I tell myself, and maybe you do too, about why we don't read
anymore. Number one, maybe we just haven't read the right books Young Adult was my thing.
If I could put 'young adult enthusiast' on my LinkedIn bio, I would. You know it makes
sense, I was 14 years old on the cusp of not yet an adult but kind of getting there. I
slurped that ish up like it was udon noodles and pho. And now I'm 32 years old and I just
can't relate to 16-year-olds anymore. I look at Katniss Everdeen and all these 16-year-olds
and I'm like 'damn you had a traumatic childhood you're gonna need a lot of therapy when you're
older' but I also feel like damn at the age of 16 I was crushing Oreos into milk and eating
it. That's all I did with my 16-year-old self probably GCSEs as well. And I'm like okay
maybe I need to try new things. Classics, you know? A bit more oldie stuff here like
a self-help book. But the problem is I can't even get myself to read it because I DON'T
READ- Number two: tick-tock on the clock... 24/7! Tik tock used to be just the sound of
a clock and then it became a Kesha song and now it's become the crack cocaine of a gen
z. Like a butthole, Tik Tok is a dark abyss that you just don't know when it's gonna end
and you don't know what's gonna come out of it like it's either gonna be [ __ ] or it's
not gonna be [ __ ]. Number three: you don't have time! I have the time to spend six hours
a day just... scrolling.
But suddenly when it comes to reading...
I can't see! 2017 is clearly when it all fell apart and coincidentally that's also the time
in my life when I started uni. I was going to the gym trying to grow my ass - important
things. Sometimes things just aren't going to be a priority in your life and that's okay!
Reading is a time investment overall and sometimes you're going to choose to invest your time
more wisely... like growing a badunkadunk over reading about intersectional feminism
and marxism and that's okay it's okay... convince yourself that it's okay.
Number 4: it's just not who you are anymore. In 2014 I didn't have a personality. I didn't
have many friends either so I made reading my personality. I made it my only personality
and now I'm 36 years old and I don't read anymore and now... I don't have a personality.
There's not one thing that I'm really good at or that I really committed myself to. People
are like "yeah I'm a coder and an actor, entrepreneur. I bake strudels, scones even apple pandowdy.
I make the perfect creme brulee. I scoot, I shuffle, I pop and lock and jam and break.
I have investments in 10 stocks and I was the lead developer in making the Pfizer Covid-19
vaccine. I even play the cello. And then I'm here like uh I I -
balegdah!
But it all just boils down to one thing, like all the other problems in our world: capitalism.
With hobbies, I feel so trapped because it's like
if it's not a skill that I can monetize or I can do something productively with or make money out of it
then I feel like I'm wasting my time because we live in an age of seven-year-old millionaires!
The stress and weight of my family's poverty really weighs heavily.
Like okay if I read this book what if it becomes a waste of my time?
What is the opportunity cost of reading The Psychology Of Twilight?
There are 12-year-olds who are making portraits of Jungkook look like it was from the renaissance!
And somehow everyone else's successes becomes a failure of my own even though it shouldn't be.
But in reality, it's just a distraction from my own path you know as people say "everyone's on their own journey(!)".
And it's not just about books it's also about my own channel. It's about all the art that I made didn't make could have made should have made.
Even on this own channel, I feel impostor syndrome because I'm like I don't even read books anymore how am I going to call myself a booktuber when
I don't engage with... anything. Everything I do has to be better than the last one, my
youtube video has to make numbers and if it doesn't I'm like 'well! I tried! never doing
that again'. Like a book has to change my life instead of letting things just be. But
at the end of the day, when I'm on my deathbed when I'm being cremated or planted into a
tree I'm not gonna be out here thinking 'oh my god what did kelly x66123 think about my
youtube video?'. This year I'm done with a Goodreads reading goal, I'm just going to
read however much I end up reading. Not everything has to be for-profit or for capitalism and
you don't have to sell your souls to the corporation even though that's inevitably going to happen.
Because sometimes the best profit is the things that fulfil your soul and really reading's
just a habit. It's just about mindset which is sometimes the hardest thing to unset - the
mind. When we were younger we could think so freely with so much creative spirit and
energy because we weren't burdened with the lies of this world and the weight of capitalism.
in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the top thing is self-actualization and along with having
a fat dump truck, it's also things that creatively enriches you. I don't have that many tips
on how to get over this because honestly I'm still in the middle of it and I'm trying to
figure out myself but if you have any books that you love or tips that you have or reflections
on life or if you also just relate and you'd like to share then we can talk to each other
in the comments. I want 2021 my goal this year is honestly to just be less self-deprecating
be kinder to myself and believe in myself more because you know what? I deserve to.
So subscribe if you want to be a g like or comment and I'll see you guys next time whenever
that is
bye