‘It’s not that there are too many books. There isn’t enough shelf space’, ‘I live for books’, ‘Writing is my life’… These are all phrases we see in bookish merchandise, and we also like saying them. Because it’s true. Books are awesome. That’s why we’re here, right?
But there is something to say about all things in excess having the potential to become bad.
Some of us have time management problems
Some of us get carried away. And you know what? Acknowleging it is healthy. I mention this first because it’s something we’ve talked before in the community, about juggling so many different things in our lives. Just reading takes up so much of our time. People who don’t read often say they just don’t have the time. We make the time, and it costs us. Family time, homework time, sleep time…
Now, some of us, do it better than others. I used to have some messed up priorities. An extremely gripping book sometimes still has the power to mess up the priorities. And that’s fine. We looove that.
As long as we deliver those assignments on time and make sure the family sees our faces from more than just behind a hardcover.
Allowing other kinds of creativity in our lives
This part is specially about writers in the community. We live and breathe books. And this too has never bothered me before. I’m the girl who has always sucked at sports, thought she could maybe draw nice, like super nice, but realized she didn’t have any talent, thought maybe she could write songs and sing them, but her singing voice is well… not great. But the songs weren’t that bad.
Words became everything to me. And for years, I was convinced maybe that was the only thing I could be good at. All my hobbies are book-related. Reading, writing, blogging…
There are plenty of bookworms who do all kinds of non-book-related stuff, but there are others, like me, that have little else.
I don’t think it’s wrong, but… it could also be fun to explore other things. It takes your mind off the feels from the latest book you read.
The most bookish win
This is a topic we’ve touched before as well. The book community has changed. It’s become more competitive, in a lot of ways. I’m not only talking about blogging and who has more followers. I’m talking who has the prettiest shelves, the most bookish Funkos, the most editions of a book, the most signed books, the most books read…
I’m not saying we shouldn’t have these things. I want pretty shelves, and read lots of books and so on, but like the other things I’ve mentioned, awareness is important. In this case, we have issues like privilege, and that in spite of it, we should always strive to make others feel welcome in our community, regardless of social or economic status.
The transparency in our lives
This is linked with social media like Instagram becoming more important in the bookish world. Not for everyone, but it’s certainly more prominent than ever. Having a visual platform like Instagram has allowed bookworms all over the world to display the aforementioned bookishness. It gives the appearance that certain users all about the books, that they have it all, and are so awesome and put together… The impulse to show that we’re ‘true’ bookworms in places like bookstagram perpetrates the idea that that is how a true bookworm looks. And our logical minds know bookworms come in all shapes and sizes, that these people are like us and are showing us but a small slice of their world, but what can we do when all we’re seeing out there is a certain way of living the bookish life, from literally almost everyone?
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I’m guilty of all of this. That’s what inspired this post, but thinking about it makes me want to do better. I want to be more than just books, and I want people to know that I struggle getting the books I have. It’s not easy, and my life isn’t perfect. I just love books, like everyone else here.
What a great post! I agree about the privilege part so much. Sometimes (okay, a lot of times) I feel bad about my blog and my instagram because I can’t have “all the pretty things” and even really print books, being international. I simply hate my instagram because I just share what I want and have no time or things to take themed and nice photos. I sometimes stay off instagram to not see the feeds of others – because they remind me how poor I am, in comparison. And how poor my whole country and way of living is. And that feeling sucks.
But on the whole, at least I think our community IS very friendly and they don’t judge you if you’re less privileged. They also don’t judge if you read less or have less followers.
I also agree about the hobbies. It’s really too bad that blogging is such a time sink though! Rarely do I even have any time for hobbies left, lol.
I do think this can definitely happen. Sometimes we can let books and blogging overtake “real life” and we have to take a step back and smell the roses!
Interesting discussion. I think for me this actually isn’t much of an issue somehow, whilst I buy a lot of books I don’t jump onto the hype, and buy all the new releases I tend to read a lot of library books and backlist books. So by the time I get round to new releases they’re then backlist books.
Instagram…I envy all bookstagram accounts for how pretty they are, I just can’t do that. I also don’t have the patience for it haha. I think at the end of the day, every reader is bookish enough if they love reading. It’s simple. But it’s harder for us to remember that when we constantly want to compare ourselves.
Another thing I’ve noticed is I actually prioritise my writing over my reading…which leads to a totally different problem of me feeling guilty for not reading enough. Which is absurd but we have that thought in our minds, of wanting to read more.
My time management is a flop usually. I’m great at procrastinating and my saving grace for my blog posts not murdering me is I’m a quick writer, editor and formattor due to the amount of writing I do daily. Reading though…I’m about as consistent as the weather is in England xD
Great post!
Time management is such a struggle. On the other hand, I tend to read more than I write so I feel guilty about not writing enough, and not reading enough and it drags one down, affecting BOTH things.
Thanks, I really wish we could focus more on OUR enjoyment of books instead of others’ expectations. It all comes down to it, but it’s hard to shake the habit of trying to be on top of everything.
It’s so cool that you’re a quick writer! I’m such a procrastinator as well and that usually works for me, but with the writing of my novel it gets a little more complicated because I set the deadlines for myself, and that doesn’t always work 🙁
Again, thanks so much for stopping by!
This is a really interesting post! I definitely think that we have created a certain mold for bookworms! I have almost no books–I get most of mine from the library–and I get so jealous looking at people’s bookstagram photos of their perfect bookshelves haha
I think I would have less books if it hadn’t been for the pressure. I love books and want to own them in my shelves, but I won’t deny that a little about fitting in with everyone else also had to do with it. I could have easily (and more cheaply) acquired them as ebooks, but… yeah.
And I get so jealous too! I don’t think that ever goes away. I hope we can bring other kinds of bookworms into the light so that there’s more diversity.
Pam, this post speaks to my soul, really, thank you for writing it and sharing your thoughts on this topic, really, that means a lot and I feel so, seen or something, haha. I find it so easy to get caught up in everything bookish and to compare ourselves, thinking we are not bookish enough, because we don’t have books everywhere, don’t do bookstagram or things like that. This really has been bothering me lately. Also, the time management problem that comes with it: I want to do my best and live my bookish life and just, be part of it and show that I have so much bookishness and blogging in my life, but… that’s impossible sometimes, because life comes around as well, work, family time, other things I want to do. I think it’s so important that we are not entirely defined by this and are allowed to be less bookish, too, that doesn’t make us less of a bookworm or not relevant or anything else. I want to think that way 🙂
Beautiful post <3
I’m so so happy to hear you can connect with it! I do feel like it’s like ‘all or nothing’ lately, and that’s slowly hurting us all. I like it when I see discussions about this because when we see that others are going through the same thing, we realize that, it’s okay, we don’t need to stress this much.
Everyone does bookish their own way! XD
Hi Pamela! I feel like everything you are saying is so, so true. I’ve seen so many bloggers disappear quietly into the night and I feel a lot of times that is because of exactly the reasons you list… Before they were in school and now that they have to become more adultish there isn’t enough time to do it all! And because it is competitive bookworms feel like they have to drop out totally because they don’t measure up the same and they want to focus on other things like work and family. <3 Totally spot on!!
That makes me so sad as well. Sure, we can make the decision to stop blogging and focus on other things in our lives at any point, but I do think that a lot of people are choosing to do so more often than ever is because of this situation. I mean, why make the time and put in the effort just to feel horrible? Best to take care of oneself and enjoy books privately. *sigh* I just know we can do better.