(no subject)
Sep. 18th, 2012 01:38 pmI've realised today that my brain deals with information overload by switching off in unexpected ways. When I see something once, I notice it. When I see it three or more times in a day, I entirely obliterate even the first mention. If someone asks me about it, I'll remember, but not be very interested.
I discovered this when I deleted the fifth mention of something I was actually interested in and realised I hadn't followed through and would not follow through and might never read the review I was being told about.
If the mentions come a few days apart and the wording is different for each or I'm being told whole new information about the same thing, I'll remember it all and follow it all. If it's a book or a movie, I might even buy the book or see the movie.
It was quite funny discovering that ten books (nine of which I already own) had migrated right to the bottom of my extensive to-read list, simply because my mind had deleted the information about them by mistake. Most of them are from one or two publishers, too, which makes me doubly sad. I'm not tempted to push them higher, though, for the information dumped into my life has taken the place of the individuality of the books in my mind and I can no longer remember why I wanted to read them. If they're your books, then I'm terribly, terribly sorry.
I'm hoping that eventually the overhype will stop and that the books can reclaim their individuality in my mind. If the worst comes to the worst, the ones I own will be on my sorting shelf and I will say "Oh, I had forgotten about this" and snag them to read when I eventually put those books away.
In an ideal world, emails about books tell me their unique values and don't come more than one every few days. Now I know why I have this ideal: it's quite worrying to discover that I'm forgetting books I wanted to read.
I discovered this when I deleted the fifth mention of something I was actually interested in and realised I hadn't followed through and would not follow through and might never read the review I was being told about.
If the mentions come a few days apart and the wording is different for each or I'm being told whole new information about the same thing, I'll remember it all and follow it all. If it's a book or a movie, I might even buy the book or see the movie.
It was quite funny discovering that ten books (nine of which I already own) had migrated right to the bottom of my extensive to-read list, simply because my mind had deleted the information about them by mistake. Most of them are from one or two publishers, too, which makes me doubly sad. I'm not tempted to push them higher, though, for the information dumped into my life has taken the place of the individuality of the books in my mind and I can no longer remember why I wanted to read them. If they're your books, then I'm terribly, terribly sorry.
I'm hoping that eventually the overhype will stop and that the books can reclaim their individuality in my mind. If the worst comes to the worst, the ones I own will be on my sorting shelf and I will say "Oh, I had forgotten about this" and snag them to read when I eventually put those books away.
In an ideal world, emails about books tell me their unique values and don't come more than one every few days. Now I know why I have this ideal: it's quite worrying to discover that I'm forgetting books I wanted to read.