Ha! There’s a pile of anxiety-related books on my coffee table waiting to be read. I am currently reading the Selected Stories of Robert Walser and it is very good – in fact, it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a while (it was recommended to me by the clerk of a communist book store, so it had to be good, of course).
I am attracted to new media – books, movies, and music alike – because I like being a part of the cultural zeitgeist. What art is being created right now? How are people talking about it? How is it influencing the culture? That fascinates me. So, I often want to read very recently published books.
I love a good hard science book (e.g., biology, physics) because I’m now mature enough to appreciate its contents and to strongly value learning. It’s a satisfying feeling of awe of getting just a small glimpse of humanity’s sum total knowledge of a subject.
I want to read books that expand my consciousness and perspective; culture and science books are just examples of this. I do often wrestle with a nearly subconscious feeling that there is some book out there waiting for me to draw tremendous value from, though believing this book is explicitly about philosophy seems not quite right somehow. This feels like a personal prophetic theme: always on the verge of something. Maybe it’s the delusion that if I just read enough books, if I just gain enough knowledge, everything will be okay, become clear, and make sense, and that I’ll shed all mental barriers and emerge on the other side a wise, enlightened, at peace, and unstoppably motivated being.

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