choosing my passion

I recently had an epiphany that seems to be changing my life… or rather, changing my pop culture landscape. I was sitting in the cinema waiting for the start of Julie & Julia and watching the trailer for The Time Traveler’s Wife when it hit me: both were books I always intended to read but never did, yet now I had the film versions at my disposal and probably would never go back to read the actual source material. Once upon a time this thought would have unnerved me. I would have protested greatly at the idea of choosing a movie version in lieu of the book itself. A true and dedicated reader, as I always was in my youth, would never dream of substituting one medium for the other but would, instead, make time for both and do a comparative study. Yet here I was, more than willing to take books off of my “To Be Read” list in favor of sitting for two hours and watching someone’s very subjective take on the stories. What had become of the girl I’ve always been? Leaving the movieplex I mentioned this realization to my parents, and my mother’s response was quick and on point, as usual. “I think a lot of your stress comes from trying to find time for all of your interests. If you did choose one over the others, you’d probably feel less stress.” Hmmm…
 
The fact that such a dilemma only belongs to a person of leisure is not lost on me. What a blessing to have so much time that my greatest stress comes from which entertainments to choose! And yet, even with so few responsibilities in my life, I don’t seem to find enough time to accomplish all that I wish. I’m either exhausted from the one thing that is taking over the most time — which is presently my job, ironically — and therefore, do not have the energy to even choose one passion over another. Or I’m so fully engaged in one leisure activity that my list of other plans keeps growing and growing without my ever deciding to be realistic with what I’ll actually accomplish. My heart has trouble letting go of things that once brought me much joy, even though I do not choose those joys on a regular basis any longer. For the past year I’ve spent more hours online in one activity or another than any other task in my downtime. I’ve logged plenty of blog posts and random status updates via Facebook and Twitter, and I’ve amassed a great list of blogs that I like to read for inspiration and general amusement. In the past few months I’ve even found the online activities to outweigh television watching, which had always been my biggest time-consumer. Both activities bring me great joy and provide much conversation in other areas of my life, yet both take time away from other so-called passions. I used to be an avid reader, but in all of 2008 I completed only six books! This year I have begun no less than five books since January but have completed none of them. And yes, this does bring me stress! I feel as if I should be ticking off titles on a list of some kind. I feel less than intellectual because I’m not reading anymore. And I’m not willing to say the words, “I’m not really a reader anymore.” It feels like a failure to my psyche and my soul. At the same time, I know that something must give for me to find peace with all I try to do in these leisure hours.
 
Perhaps there is solace in this: what I love at this moment in my life is sure to change at some point in the future. With new technology, there is so much more on which to place our focus. Though I love to watch television and make time for many, many hours each week, there just may come a day when nothing interesting remains on TV. And the people who write the blogs that I love may also find themselves in similar time dilemmas and could stop writing altogether. Where will it leave me when there is no longer interesting film or television or internet distractions? Well… there will be books! And once again, I will become an avid reader. I can accept this current shift in my heart, in my pop culture passions, because I know that I am extremely fickle and do not obsess over the same things forever. What I love today, whose films I’m following this summer, will be completely different next season and next year. So for now, I’m choosing which passions bring me the most joy at this moment in time. Television, movies, the world wide web. The only question that remains is… what in the world will I do with all these unread books?