Last post, I introduced the Reader’s Formula for Selecting Books. It looked like this:
Values ((Assets + x) – (Desires + y) – Liabilities – Requirements) = Optimal Reading
This post, I am going to give an example from my reading life to demonstrate how to use this formula. The first part of the formula is “values”, which I said are variable. They determine what experiences we deem important or not, and influence our judgment and behaviors. For simplicity, and to avoid sounding like a Sociology 101 text, I call this “life acting upon us”, because essentially, our life circumstances give rise to our values.
So, what do I value these days? What filter is life applying to me to influence which experiences I let in and which ones I release? Lately, I have been feeling adrift, directionless. After two years of working regularly to revise my manuscript, I find myself ready to give up on the project. My mind resists quitting, but my behaviors tell me I already have. I can’t make myself work on it anymore, yet nothing has replaced this piece of work in my mind. No new ideas. No desire to do anything else. I am adrift on a plain of apathy. How to find my way?
I decide to read to take my mind off my failure. I browse the stacks in the library, hoping to be inspired by something. My eye lands upon the cover of a book, featured by the library staff. It is called The Selected Works by T. S. Spivet by Reif Larsen. I have seen this book many times, and although intrigued by it, I never took it home. This particular day, feeling lost and in need of a map to navigate my professional aspirations, I thought, “What better way to reorient myself than to read a book about a boy cartographer?” If being lost was what life was giving me, then finding my way was what I valued. Therefore, in my reader’s formula, v = Finding my way.
