Thank you for everyone who’s been subscribing and commenting on my posts, whether by email or in Substack. I want this to be a conversation—about mindfulness, books, politics, and all the other content we’re consuming.
One poet friend doesn’t understand my project. She asks:
“1. Why do you need to consume information
2. Why do you need to report information
3. Why does it need to be everything.”
Of course I don’t “need” to report on everything I consume. But my pledge (to myself and my small audience here on Substack) is that I will reflect on everything I consume to help myself better understand and mindfully reflect upon all the content that swamps me every day. I am committing to do this as a means of forcing myself to slow down, consume less, and think more carefully about the books, shows, essays, and so forth, that I consume. Obviously I don’t “need” to report information, but I’ve committed to do so as a means of breaking my mindless-consumption habit.
Or, as writer Alex Debronko wrote in his recent Substack, quoting an essay he wrote for Sublime: “By pausing, opening an app or a notebook or pulling my sleeve up to write an idea on my arm (something I do a lot), and committing that idea to memory--that act itself breathes life into not just the idea but into my conception of self as an artist, a writer, a person who takes his own ideas seriously. Writing things makes them real. The stuff of spiritual and psychological matter. The stuff that matters.”
Also, my poet friend, maybe you don’t spend hours mindlessly scrolling and wondering what you just did with the previous two hours. Sadly, I do, and it’s the opposite of being mindful, and I’m looking for ways to break away from that behavior. I’m sharing the concept and its product here because I know I can’t be the only person absolutely drowning in content and searching for ways to keep up. I would love others to join me. I’d love to make reflection and sharing a movement—even if people only do this for themselves in their journals.
In another comment, a longtime friend suggested I should just consume less. She said, “Sounds overwhelming, Lanette. In my mind, we all need to pay more attention to the needs of our nervous systems which are overloaded right now. Stillness, peace, nature, art, whatever feels soothing. It’s impossible to keep up with the craziness, as each day here on planet earth gets more and more challenging.
“If we can slow things down and break things down, and focus (i.e. pay attention) to our own wellness and to the ones we love, and what we love, we’d be doing ourselves a favor. So you may want to go to a ‘one book at a time’ method to avoid causing yourself more stress. I do the same thing with healing-arts classes I want to take, as I want to take them all, so I get it. We need to choose one, finish it, and repeat, or we’ll drive ourselves crazy and there’s enough of that going on already.”
To which I respond: Yes, my friend, I absolutely should go the one-book-at-a-time route! But I haven’t been able to make myself do that, which is part of why I’ve started this Paying Attention project. I have piles of magazines and books gathering height on shelves and surfaces all over my house, and instead of just choosing one at a time, I feel paralyzed by my need to consume them all. (I’m partly paralyzed by my fear of returning the library books because if I do I’ll go back to the bottom of a long waiting list before I get that book back. Which… that would be fine, right? I don’t have time to read them all right now anyway!)
I am trying to figure out why I feel the need to read every single book I see positively mentioned in the many book-related emails I receive…it isn’t even that much fun if I don’t get to talk about them with anyone after I read them. So again, thus this project.
This week the only book I’ve been consuming is the Barbra Streisand autobiography, My Name is Barbra, which, though long (48 hours!), I highly recommend as an audiobook so you can hear the sound clips and Barbra’s inimitable voice telling her own story. Listening to her describe all her struggles to satisfy her artistic vision on every project is making me want to watch or rewatch every movie she ever made. I have a new appreciation for her genius and spirit—and for how misunderstood and mischaracterized she’s been through the years just for being a powerful, wildly talented woman. I’m a new fan.
I’ve also read several articles about the travesty of justice the Supreme Court just executed by giving the president immunity from any crime he might commit while in office. I feel personally violated by this decision; it has undone any belief I had in the checks and balances of our nation. My terror about what will happen to us all if Trump is re-elected could cripple me completely if I let it. So I am thrilled that AOC will be introducing a bill to impeach the justices, as I agree completely with her statement: “Today’s ruling represents an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture.”
I’m glad someone is doing something while most of us are just standing here with our mouths ajar in horror watching this trainwreck hurtling toward us. Hearing that she has a plan (however much an uphill battle she’ll face getting it executed) gives me strength not to give up. I am also heartened to learn that the 2020 election had the highest voter turnout in decades, 60 percent, so I am hoping we have high turnout this time, too. Higher even!
And finally, I confess, I’ve cheated: I’ve consumed hours of mindless content via late night or early morning scrolling of Instagram, X, Facebook, and TikTok. I berated myself for every video I watched– but I still feel good that I’m more aware when I’m sinking into a mind-numbing scroll-hole and am doing it less.
I just started reading the book “Subtract” and I feel like it might answer your question about why we feel the urge to consume. I’m only a chapter in but it reminded me of your newsletter!