In Which I Propose a Great Heresy They Could Revoke My Librarianship Over. If They Did Such Things.

[rockinlibrarian]

So, those of you who can't read my Friends'-locked entries are probably unaware that I recently went on antidepressants, for the second unsuccessful time in my life. The wherefores and whatnots are of little importance to this post. What IS important are the side effects which led me to officially (with doctor approval, of course) QUIT taking them again last night.

My first experience with antidepressants gave me no side effects but one, a strange and particularly annoying (to ME at least) one: I was unable to remember my dreams. I know, lots of people don't remember their dreams, but not me-- I am FAMOUS for my epic, twisted, wonderful, storylike dreams. My dreams were what inspired me to start WRITING as a child, because I needed to share these amazing stories in my head with the world! So going in this second time around, that was what I was most apprehensive about. And I DID have a problem with that at first. But this gradually went away in a few weeks, returning to me again such incredible epics as last night's tale of ghosts, county fairs, huge panoramas which were not properly labeled "snow story," Lorelai Gilmore running a conference on WWII veterans, and Ramona Quimby taking up carjacking. YOU would have missed this stuff too.

But, almost at the same time as the dreams started coming back, the drowsiness, headaches, and concentration issues got worse. MUCH worse. Whatever improvement in mood I might have experienced had been completely canceled out by my being Utterly and Completely OUT of It. Therefore: enough of that. Only, I still have to wait a bit for the effects to completely wear off, and as I was still struggling with the concentration issue this morning, I came to a shocking conclusion.

I understand what it's like for someone who does not like to read.

My concentration issue has been one of the factors in my Not-getting-as-many-books-read-lately problem. Doesn't account for earlier in the year, but definitely accounts for the past couple months. I've been trying to get into the latest Frances Hardinge --FRANCES HARDINGE, PEOPLE!-- for the past two weeks, and am still only halfway through chapter 3. I gave up on the book before that entirely by the end of the first short chapter, even though it promised to be about Jane Austen. I can barely read BLOGS lately! I SCAN my Friends Page and Google Reader and am actually reading FAR less than I usually would, and even when I see something I think is interesting I still have to force myself to actually sit and read every word. Or every sentence. Or at least not scroll away until I've gotten the basic gist of it.

But wait! says I as I put down the Hardinge again this morning and pick up my paper journal instead (that requires less concentration, because I can write whatever crap I want as it comes to me). If this is all the result of a temporary mental miswiring on my part, maybe all those people who claim they don't like reading feel like this ALL THE TIME when they try to read! Maybe THEIR brains just happen to be wired that way!

Maybe insisting that there is a Book for Every Reader (and a Reader for Every Book, although this is incidental in this case) is a LIE! Maybe I am being cruel even to SUGGEST such a thing!

I know. Shocking. Scary. I can't believe it of myself. I may have to be flogged.

I know I must be wrong. There's always the DK Eyewitness books, full of pictures and captions and fascinating facts. I'm sure I could handle one of those, and so could the most reluctant of readers, if it's on a subject they fancy. And how would an audiobook work? Would it force you to stay on reading task, because someone else is setting the pace, or would it just inspire daydreaming and leave you unable to figure out what's going on?

Or a book that is nearly exclusively bits of short dialogue? That would be a script. So, a script? Would that work? I say that because reading dialogue is more similar to skimming than reading thick blocks. More like a Twitter convo. There've been studies and papers about whether or not social media and the Internet are rewiring people's brains to be, um, FLIGHTIER. I would link you, but I can't remember where I've seen them now and trying to go find them again would require more concentration than I am yet able to manage. Is it TRUE? ARE we becoming more non-focused to the point of being UNABLE TO READ? Well, as an example, in the course of writing this paragraph I stopped to: check Twitter, which was telling me I had seven new Tweets; READ a link I'd gotten from Twitter (which was, luckily, short); have a short discussion with a coworker; suddenly remember I was supposed to update something on the online library calendar, and do so; but start daydreaming halfway through that in order to figure out when I might take my children to a storytime this fall since the boy is starting preschool and we'll have a whole new weekly schedule for ourselves; go back to editing the calendar, but quit because my head hurt*; stare at the small tiger figurine on the other side of the desk for a little while... and wait, I honestly forget what I was talking about. No, okay, but I really don't think this is the fault of today's online society. I think this is genuinely just my own drug-related problem of the moment. MAYBE the supposed flightiness of people today is actually a result in a rise of antidepressant use? Or not, but anyway, if concentration really is this difficult for such people... WHY ARE WE FORCING THE ISSUE?

(Which brings up attention disorders. My husband has ADHD and several variations of dyslexia. But you hand him an RPG manual or a 500-page study on handloading ammunition and he will devour that thing, while taking notes, until he has it memorized. And then he'll still come back and read it again. Ask majellen, she's seen him do it. With proper interest, it is possible for people with attention disorders to focus! So I don't know if this is, in fact, Something Else Entirely).

I've written before about how presenting reading as something everyone should to because it's Good for You is stupid and counterproductive, and I think now I'm even more convinced. Reading is just a hobby. It's mindblowingly awesome for some people, it's enjoyable for others, it's not much of anything for other others, and for some people it's an outright chore. And maybe you're hardwired to be the kind of reader-- or nonreader-- you are. Maybe no librarian or teacher or peer will ever be able to change that.

But you hear stories all the time that disagree. You hear all sorts of people talk about that One Book, that One Book That Changed Everything. So I guess we shouldn't give up entirely.

Maybe we should just be more sympathetic about basic brain differences.

*NOTE TO BARB IF YOU ARE READING THIS, 8/18/11: I DID finish the first two weeks before quitting, and today I've finished ALL of it-- I AM feeling much better today, thank you-- so all is good! I have finished my job! And in the future I can do them all at once and they won't have to be edited individually after the fact, but anyway.

Comments

[sal_amanda]

I just about never remember my dreams, except every once in a great while in the early morning right before I wake up. But I can't top Ramona Quimby taking up carjacking.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

And shoplifting. Except that was actually my cousin and I, and it's just we had to leave the shop in a hurry by the back door to avoid some bullies, but a few minutes later our entire adventures to that point became attributed to the Quimby sisters. And then Ramona had to hijack a car because it was the only way to get back to the county fair. I'm not sure why ASKING THE PEOPLE THE CAR BELONGED TO FOR A RIDE wasn't a viable option, but it wasn't.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, he can. And I'm totally ADHD about that kind of stuff. And cleaning. I'm the most ADD housekeeper in the world. Ask my husband. If I am forced to stay on one task, I can. But left to my own devices, I'll wash half the dishes, then leave for a moment to turn off the tv I left on. Then I'll see a sock on the floor. So I'll pick it up and realize I need to do a load of laundry. Then while in the basement, I'll see the box of clothes that needs sorted. I'll want to go upstairs and get the other clothes my kids have outgrown. While I'm upstairs, I'll notice that the kids legos are everywhere and need cleaned up. So I'll organize the toys. I'll find a bath toy, and go to put it away. I notice that the toilet is dirty, so I start to clean the bathroom. But I'll need paper towels. That are in the kitchen. And chances are, if I go into the kitchen....I'm going to have to finish the dishes.

(Who doesn't love a little Numeroff tribute now and then???)

I blame electronics. Kids are so wrapped up in the instant gratification of their handheld video games/phones/ipods, that they don't learn to enjoy reading a well written story. Adults too. But that's just a theory. Think of it though. Back in ye olden times, books WERE the entertainment. Well, that, or you had to practice your harpsichord or your needlepoint, or if you were a boy, whittling or something like that. Less distractions.

Also...teach me how to use twitter? Thanks!

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

(Megan, I assume? Still not getting the signing-in thing to work, apparently?)

That was a rather brilliant Numeroff tribute actually.

Like I said, the studies that I'm too lazy to find DO blame the electronics. I'm pretty sure MY PERSONAL problem was drug-enduced, though, because it does seem to be going away.

I'm not sure I'm the best person to teach anyone to use Twitter, though I use it a little better than I did when I started, because I spend a lot of time at the children's ref desk which can get REALLY SLOW, so I'll have it on in an extra tab-- our new circ system is web-based, so the Internet is ALWAYS OPEN AND RIGHT THERE-- and suddenly anyone who is actually following my Tweets ends up with a lot of Bored In the Library Tweets every few days. I tend to use it mostly as a kind of news index-- I follow a bunch of things like Publishers Weekly and the AV Club that basically just tweet links to their many articles, so I scroll through and see what's happening and click on any of them that sound interesting; then I stalk authors I like or think are funny (OMG @kierstenwhite (http://twitter.com/#!/kierstenwhite) --she only has two books out and is not that well-known, but she ought to be just because she is HILARIOUS and is worth following on Twitter even if you haven't read her books, because, HILARIOUS), and about half the cast of Firefly (also hilarious and a surprisingly great writer-- read her blog links: Jewel Staite (http://twitter.com/#!/JewelStaite)) and half the production staff of Sherlock (admittedly in an attempt to stalk Martin Freeman, who is not on Twitter, likely for his own safety) and several random unrelated people like my sister. As for actually Tweeting MYSELF, (http://twitter.com/#!/rocknlibrarian1) most of my Tweets are simply replies to other people's Tweets, which, FYI, don't even get seen by the people following you unless they're also following the other person. Likely why only four people are following ME, one of whom is my sister, two of whom already read this blog, and the last of whom, to my great thrill but also bewilderment, is Diane Duane. Also, I have LiveJournal set up so that all my posts automatically show up as links on Twitter, which is relatively pointless as three of the four people following me already follow me HERE, but it's the principle of the thing.

[mark flowers (from livejournal.com)]

I think you're definitely on to something here. I mean, if you expand your definition of "book" enough, then there probably is a "book for every reader"--as you said, DK Eyewitness, screenplays, poems, whatever. But, if we want to talk frankly (and risk our librarianship), what most librarians *really* want their customers to be reading is narrative fiction (or *maybe* narrative non-fiction). And you here excuses being made for GNs or whatever as gateway drugs into "real" books--ie, narrative fiction.

But I think you're right that the truth is that a lot of people don't have the concentration or the interest in that kind of book, and why, exactly is that such a tragedy?

(I'm sticking by this, and they'll have to pry my MLIS from my cold dead hands)

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

It makes it sound so much like "Reading narrative fiction is something everyone needs to do BECAUSE IT'S GOOD FOR YOU," which isn't even a helpful mindset as it is!

[katecoombs.livejournal.com]

Aauugh! I'm putting my hands over my ears (okay, my eyes) and saying lalalalala! (Not everyone can love reading? No way! Well, maybe a handful of people, somewhere out there. Maybe.)

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I am still in shock myself. Particularly as I've mostly regained my powers of concentration by now. (But I still haven't finished reading Fly Trap. And it's officially overdue to the Other Library now and reached its renewal limit. But at least I'm INTO reading it now!)