Criminal Comprehension

The SDYD as an entirely selfish endeavor

I loathe reading this month’s book club selection.

You know how people have a lot of feelings for the Sopranos movie? How there are a lot of articles and opinions and conversations on all that? Re-watchings and tweets and the like?

Oh, and like Breaking Bad? And Game of Thrones and all that?

Will there be more seasons or additional flicks? Reunions and whatnot?

Those shows are not my personal bag. I have generalized cultural familiarity but little more than that. I do have serialized predilections of my own - like not “my own” but rather more to my palate, my paperback - mass market palate, that is.

For instance, there is this one particular serialized mystery series with volumes in the high fifties, started in the eighties and still going strong. It is a bit of science fiction, soft serve eroticism, heavy on the police procedural, conspiracy hinting, with a “strong female lead”, and each pithy chapter ending with just enough of a cliff hanger to have you looking at the clock and thinking - just one more. So, yeah, like I relate to the happy obsessions and feeling like, yes you “should” be getting on to something else rather than ‘tuning in’ yet again. Just because my addiction is in book form does not make it any different than those that stream in - actually reading is a kind (analog if you like…) of subconsciously ODing, no?

Well, BIG REVEAL, the book series I note above is NOT on tap for this month’s, or any, book club. The volume, which is on deck this month, one that comes recommended by one of our most loyal SDYD We Read Book Club attendees - that book I am HATING. HATING. HATING.

This is exactly why I do a book club, dontcha know. I do it, I made it up, and I team up with a dear pal and book zealot former client to put it on, run our GoodReads, marketing, organize and choose it for just this reason: to have my buttons pushed a bit, seams ribbed and mind opened. Not that we need lousy books that feel are like a chore to read - come to this month’s even and I will tell you ALL and much, much, more - to break down our habits and look, hot head on, to why we do like and don’t like and gravitate and revolt against certain prose, but when we do sit with those stinkers and show up to harsh that reaction out with others. In short, we grow as readers, writers, thinkers, (yup) citizens, and (surely) friends.

One of the things y’all are very familiar with hearing me say in client sessions is that frustration is the most valuable and informative emotion out there. Our brains - all our brains - recall and understand discontent a HELL of a lot more than we ever, ever, ever do happiness and contentment.

Sure, I bet you can bring forth a vision of a first kiss, a great night, or special gift - but those are flashes and embellishments as pain and irritations are so a burn. (Think “raw rug burn” burn.) We leave apartments and relationships and jobs and, sometimes, hotels mid-vacation, regardless of whether or not we are certain we will get our deposits back. Get pissed enough and who cares about deposits? Deposits can kiss the ass of anyone irked enough to toss all their shit in a suitcase and hit the streets (a/k/a wilds of a last minute AirBnB booking) 

What I tend to do with discontent is just the above - I bounce. I am not inclined to co-dependency. (Except with Benedict and that does not count! If you asked yourself, YOU are actually just as hooked on him as I!) I don’t cling; I let go. I forget.  I shrug and mourn for nearly less than a second. Commitment I love, but intimacy - well that is unknown. These habits and approaches are just as pathological and wise as any other. As much as I don’t get bogged down or lose time in things I don’t dig, I also jump before I get a lot of intel on what I might actually learn by way of growth and empathy and understanding that this button pushing thing brings up.

Another super, and relatively painless, humbling of a book in conversation with others, and in this month’s case, recommended by another, is that we gain the kind of companionship, championing, and accountability that reading, an otherwise solitary act does on its own, does not allow.

Oh, there is a lot of coolness here, too - again, for selfish me! - and that is about interior isolation. I love my mind. I am fond of my perspective. I have the most delightful observations about the most mundane and fantastical shit. Sometimes, I feel like my entire time away is an interstellar adventure where my feet walk, my heart beats, and my hands move at the edges of a universe filled with “what ifs” oh and “what abouts” that are fun - but also not necessarily that connected to more touchable and tangible shared realities.  Part of my great artistry is I can riff like no other, but my takeaways can also be, well - whack. I know well that there are books I have and do read that if I told you ‘the plot’ that would kinda not actually be the storyline at all. Rather, I am inclined to scroll my eyes across and down a page only slightly slower than my head spins around an internally manifested reality.

Reading with others keeps me grounded. I get to hear vs “share” (a gift for a coach, oh yes, indeedy!) and check myself and understandings. Knowing there is a date on the calendar where others will be reading - or not reading as we always review the plot, put the book within genre and culture context, break down characters, and cherry pick themes to riff on - does so, so much to make me the better and best reader I might never have been and could hope to be.

Look, y’all school can be a crunch and socializing ain’t easy - especially for fun and smart and real grown adults.  Thus, gathering for a shared thing, to pick apart this month more than others (!) can be a welcomed and, you bet, really wonderful way to break ice as well as break down ideas, thoughts, and (as so above) opinions, too!

If you have read this deep - we may not have met, but you know me. I am there and super friendly, and can’t wait to meet you, and poke you with all the affection a person can muster to talk, or not, ask, or listen, and (this is a requirement, all!) enjoy.

Mauve not the book, but for sure the meet up. See me get spicy and, likely, be proven wrong. Books and reading need not be about quantity, quality, nor intellect - they are byways to discourse and inquiry into a good deal of our habits as readers, other humans, and ourselves.