I have been reading for so long now that I couldn’t even remember what life was like when I wasn’t bookworm yet. How did I live? How did I make it through my saddest days? Did I find solace in my dreadful nights? And so on. Those years felt distant until the Philippines had the longest lockdown in the world.
I was only able to finish two chapters of Toni Morrison’s Paradise and two to three essays on Artificial Intelligence. I was beating myself up for not reading enough, not writing enough, not living the literary life enough. Because I believe Bukowski’s take on passion, I can’t help but demand more of myself when dealing with the things I love doing.
The old, drunkard poet said: “If something burns your soul with purpose and desire, it’s your duty to be reduced to ashes by it. Any other form of existence will be yet another dull book in the library of life.”
And I don’t want a dull life. And literature, I think, is the crayon to my blank slate. Now that I twitch here in my seat, I look back and realize that a reader must also be gentle to its restless side. A restless reader should see, at least, these three things:
First, the fluidity of time. A reader can’t dwell in the past. In the same way, no reader gets stuck in one page. No matter how good page 267 is, I have no other choice but to flip the page. One should always push to see the end of things. But it is also important to know that 267 is followed by 268 and not 270. No reader skips a possible present just because a future is out there. The important point is to read page 267 with all the energy you can muster and to go to the next page and step into it lively.
Second, habits constitute our identity. I started reading as a habit until I became a reader. And swimmers did the same. And so did the dancers, and singers, among others. There are many habits we can develop in our lifetime but there is nothing that is more proactively inculcated to us than the habit of being productive. While the world reaffirms the habit of productivity, the human soul seeks habitual rest. The solution to this disjuncture between the world and our cogitation is to always know when to continue and when to stop. The frequency of our habits determine what identity becomes more pronounced in our lives.
And let us say you did dwell in the past and that you have the worst habits today, what do you do? Remember the third one, that no grief is wasted. No grief is wasted if you decide to carry the lessons of your seasons with you. As a matter of fact, nothing in life is wasted, especially for those who choose to carry their burdens with them. And by burden, I don’t mean the terrible things in one’s life. Burdens are those that make you self-aware. They serve as your internal gravity. This is because no one, no one has the same burdens as you are. You alone can carry your own.
As a reader, I fear wasting my days. There are too many books to read and words to write, I said. The lockdown made me feel stagnant. But as I conclude this work, I am reminded that for those living the literary life, the body can be confined but the soul is always free.
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