The Luxury of Having Time to Read

Why is it so hard to make time to read?

For the next three weeks, I’m here in Seoul with my brother, visiting our parents. It will be the first time our whole family will be together under one roof for any meaningful time since… 2013, I think. First time in a decade then. Many years, months, and weeks to make up for.

Still, I will have lots of free time, and I’ve been looking forward to having a lot of time to read since I won’t be working and I don’t know many people here. There are lots of things I want to do in the city, but I’ve spent enough time here before that my schedule won’t be packed with sightseeing.

Reading is one of those things I wish I did more of back home. But unfortunately, it often gets neglected and relegated to something I do as the last thing before sleeping. My job thankfully isn’t too time-consuming, is mostly WFH, and is very predictable hours-wise. That leaves about approximately 6-8 hours of free time left in the day, and I’m a night owl. Subtract the time needed for small everyday tasks like cooking, eating, cleaning, grocery shopping, picking up this or that, and that’s at least a couple of hours spent. The remaining time is then divided amongst the things I really like to do: writing, playing piano, maybe watching a movie at home. There are also date nights with my girlfriend or hangouts with friends. And of course, the inevitable interneting.

I don’t like that reading gets such low priority. At least it’s higher than working out. Some say there are more writers than readers (literary magazines are a prime victim of this imbalance), which is a surefire sign of societal narcissism if true. Sometimes, I meet people much younger than I am and when they reference all the books they’ve read, I wonder what the hell have I been doing with my time (I probably should’ve read more in college instead of Facebook stalking everyone and worrying about girls all the time). I did have a fruitful two-year reading stretch, which uncoincidentally were also my years of unemployment/part-time employment. If you won’t be financially ruined by it, I highly recommend getting fired at least once in your life. But that’s a topic for a different piece.

It’s common to hear people say that high school was the last time they read for fun. I wonder if it’s because college sucks the fun out of reading, bombarding us with overloaded syllabi, the completion of which is geared towards annoying section discussions and papers where your thesis causes even your own eyes to roll involuntarily. Then most of us enter the working world, where the last thing we want to do with our precious free time is do something that reminds us of homework.

There’s a cafe/bar/bookstore that I used to go to, where I got a lot of writing done. I rarely go there now since I don’t live on that block anymore. But every now and then, on a free night, I’ll head on over. My hope is that I’ll snag one of the comfy leather chairs on a slow night there, and I’ll put in my earphones and finally make some real headway into that book I’ve been reading at a pace of two-pages-per-night-before-falling-asleep. But usually, the place is almost full, with people sitting at the bar, reading while music and chatter are ricocheting off all surfaces. They’re usually not even wearing any headphones! The cynic in me wants to think they’re just showboating, doing the literary equivalent of grunting loudly in the gym. But I also think they’re just seeking what I’m seeking: a place to get away to read. Since most of us aren’t lucky enough to have mahogany-finished studies in our apartments, even a busy bar on a Thursday night will have to do. 

And maybe they do want to be seen, at least just a little bit. Because in an ideal world, reading shouldn’t feel as isolating as it does. A lot of activities are isolating, like watching a movie by yourself at home. But at least afterwards, you’ll have lots of people to talk about the movie with, especially if it’s a popular one. With reading, it’s frequently a challenge just to find others who’ve read the same things. And while online communities can be a search away, they can be homogeneous in taste and opinion, too. 

There’s also something submissive about the act of reading, something that recalls a teacher-student relationship. You sit there, quietly and obediently, often literally being told what to think. Watching movies and television is passive, but at least you’re rewarded with all sorts of instant sensory stimulations. Writing is silent and solitary, but it’s active and bears the promise of a work to call your own at the end.

So with reading, in exchange for this isolation and submission, are we increasingly demanding more in return? As in, if we’re going to sacrifice our time and attention, we better have our viewpoints and lifestyles affirmed and celebrated. No mean characters! Proper life lessons only! Nothing that reminds me of that girl or guy I really resented and was jealous of in middle school.

The thing is we read all the time. When we’re scrolling on our phones, we’re reading. When we’re perusing articles online, we’re reading. When we’re sending and receiving texts, we’re reading. But usually, all those things are done on borrowed time, whether it’s when we’re walking to somewhere or we’re procrastinating at work. Only when I’m faced with devoting 100% of my own time to reading a book, like at 8pm on an otherwise blank Wednesday night, do I start making excuses: ‘There’s that Youtube video analyzing Ange Postecoglou’s tactics that I simply need to watch again.’

There’s a small sense of indignation as well with reading: ‘My free time is precious. Why should I spend it on this book, which may be boring and whose contents I won’t even remember once I’m done? And even if I do retain things, who will I talk about them with?’ If this mindset is prevalent, then it’s no wonder that when we do read, we only read ideologically aligned writers. They’re the only ones worthy of our sacrifice.

I’m off to a good start, though. On the plane, I began I’m A Fan by Sheena Patel and finished it on the same day I landed. I was cautiously optimistic about the book, but I also hedged my bets, treating it somewhat as a hate-read. I’m happy to say I loved the book—the type of novel I’ve been long searching for—and I’ll soon be writing about it. Now, I’ve got the other books that are in the cover photo for this piece. Plus, I’m looking for Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy because of a book club I’m in, but I came up empty yesterday despite visiting two mega bookstores here.

Starfield Libary at COEX Mall, where they didn’t have Blood Meridian

Seoul was where I really began to write, mainly because of the social removal it provided me. For most of November, even though I’ll still be online, I’ll feel distant from the goings-on back home. The time difference here will actually feel more like time travel, that I’m half a day ahead of whatever explodes on social media and thus will have seen that whatever the story or character of the day is, it won’t matter. This year, I’ve taken random days off of work to just go read at a cafe. Because everyone I know will be working, there’s no sense that I’m missing out on anything. Just nothing to do but read.