Acedia

I am now, I think, completely indifferent to my books. And I do not know if this is a good thing. I don’t know that I have risen above my greedy little mind, libido sciendi and all that, so much as I have been overtaken by apathy.

The curiosity that compelled me to acquire books is the very thing, I think, that prevents me from reading and enjoying them.  Well, maybe not curiosity itself but the first cousin of curiosity. It was my curiosity and acquisitiveness that  compelled me to snatch them up. It is my magpie mind and its need for constant stimulation that makes it very difficult for me to care about what I have before me.  Nothing holds my interest very long.

I have found it very difficult to focus on one thing for any extended period and consequently do not enjoy reading at all. I should think that that part of my brain is so atrophied at this point that it is difficult for me to read at all. The facility, the naturalness is gone. Reading is difficult; it is an arduous task. I now catch my mind running off, I wake suddenly and realize that I have skimmed several sentences or paragraphs. It takes a concerted effort on to return to the page and reread that which is in front of me.

“When you do something, you should burn yourself completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself” Shunryu Suzuki

And now I wonder if living in Denmark has revealed something to me that was masked over in California. In these past six months I have purchased next to nothing for myself. Sure I’ve bought some lumber and a few office supplies, but none of the things that it gave me so much pleasure  to acquire in the past– books, hand tools, music. I never realized the extend to which acquiring things was a great part of maintaining my happiness. Well, not so much maintaining happiness as holding my despair momentarily at bay. I bought things reflexively. And I felt better.

But buying things whether they be cars, clothes, books, music, or fine art is merely a kind of pseudo-creativity. Its the easiest way to express oneself, stake out an identity, bond with a tribe, pull rank, dazzle friends with your good taste.

Of course, we do not have the money to throw around on books or tools. But then there is nothing here that I wish to buy. I do miss the used bookstores in San Francisco and Berkeley.  The library here in Roskilde has a lot of books in English.  But for some reason borrowing books doesn’t give me the same frisson. Why is that?

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