Trials & tribulations of the reader

I was supposed to do jury duty today on the grand jury, so last night I spent some time picking out a good book to take with me (I’ve always heard you should take something to read.)

I discovered it was hard to pick a good book! I didn’t want to read trash (no Danielle Steel), but I didn’t want to look like a complete weirdo (no Boccaccio’s Decameron, and yes, I looked at it!) I wanted something that looked intelligent and truth-seeking. I liked the idea of Telling the Truth About History, but I didn’t want to read it! I also wanted something that would be light enough to be readable in less than ideal reading conditions. I wasn’t sure about Documents of American Indian Policy or Andrew Jackson vs. Henry Clay. How about Lies My Teacher Told Me? Something anti-establishment would go over really well, right?

On the other side of the bookshelf, I didn’t want anything too hippie. I want to read How to Survive Without a Salary but I’m not sure how the average legal sort would take that. I almost chose Gene Logsdon’s Homesteading. But another criteria was that if it somehow accidentally got lost in the courthouse, I wouldn’t cry too much over it, and I really don’t want to lose that book!

I very nearly chose Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, but I finally decided on the book about Man o’ War that I got for Christmas a year or two ago. I think it was a very neutral, smart but not in a weirdo way, interesting choice. And I do want to read it. I started last night, and so far it’s pretty interesting.

Oh, and I arrived at the courthouse, sat for 20 minutes and read a few pages, got sworn in and then told to go home. Thank you very much.

So now I have to go to work. What a drag!

Compulsive reading

I am a compulsive reader.  I read constantly, voraciously, compulsively. If you put words in front of me, I will read them. If I am doing something that allows reading, I read.

There are people out there who read more books than I read. It depends on the specific books I’m reading. Some books are light and quick; others are heavy and take some time to get through. I tend to read more of the latter. For the past several years I have read a minimum of ten books per month.

But what good does all this reading do? I enjoy it, but then couch potatoes enjoy mindlessly watching TV too. Does my reading habit measurably increase my utility, or even my sense of worth as a human being?  

Here is the crux of my personal crisis: I exist, but what benefit do I bring the world? I take in oxygen, but what do I contribute in return?  I have this nagging feeling that I’m supposed to do something, maybe not bring world peace, but help out someone in some small way. And helping them find Saw IV on the shelf at the library just doesn’t seem to qualify.

Surely there must be some valuable commodity that can be gotten from reading. I definitely have an active life of the mind. There’s a lot going on in there, but I don’t find many opportunities to turn it loose on the outside. Maybe that’s why I read; it’s a self-sustaining compulsion. I read because I would go stir crazy without intellectual stimulation.

And on the flip side there is writing. I write quite a bit, keeping journals and what-not. But the problem with my writing is that it lacks a receptive brain. I wish I could stop people in the street, hand them something I’ve written, and say “here, read this, tell me what you think.” Dang, I miss being in school, because that’s what school gave me–a response. In the real world no one cares what you’re thinking unless you can somehow make them care.

Hmmm…let me ponder that one.