Beside my bed sits a sizable, ever-growing stack of books I have sworn, time and time again, I will read “next.” It begins sensibly enough, arranged by size at the bottom, but tilts precariously at its peak, perhaps only moments from total collapse. Despite my best efforts to shrink it, the stack continues to grow faster than I can possibly manage. And it’s not just books. My notes app is crammed with lists of shows, movies, and albums recommended to me by friends. I vow, every time, with sincere optimism, that I will get to them soon. The reality is that I haven’t watched, listened to, or experienced even half of what I thought I would by now. Even as I try to read before bed each night, learn languages, and keep up with current events and culture, the list demands more. How can I truly consider myself engaged in the world when I am, even by my own measures, behind?

I know I am not alone in feeling this way. The defining anxiety of our generation, the one that has been simmering for some time, is the feeling that we must somehow fit it all in. We are so enamored by the idea of consumption that we fantasize about it, creating the “to-be”s – to-be-read, to-be-watched, to-be-experienced. Like Plath’s fig tree, we are paralyzed by infinite possibility. The sheer abundance of consumption options before us overwhelms, and so we opt to make no choice at all, only dreaming of what could be. As children, we naturally saw futures where we could be astronauts, singers, and doctors all at once. Now, our aspirations are weighted with significantly more existential anxiety – “me because i can’t be fluent in every language, listen to all music, major in 5 different studies, watch every movie created, befriend everyone, read every book written, have 10 different careers, play all instruments and see every corner of the earth before i die,” reads the caption of a TikTok by user @yuna.batmunkh with more than 800,000 likes. The accompanying melodramatic gesture – sinking a figurative knife into her chest as HIM’s “Join Me In Death” plays – echoes what I, too, feel when I look at my overflowing lists: defeat. Time spent curating is time not spent engaging, and yet, we keep adding more. But there’s still something missing.

We live in a time of near-infinite access to culture. Virtually any work of art, great novel, or film is out there, ready to be devoured at any given moment. And yet, for all our ability to consume, we seem no closer to satisfying a deep-seated hunger for something real. Our society’s pace has killed the idea of “consumption” as a profound, sustaining practice. Art and knowledge, those things that should be the most communal, basic aspects of our experience, have been branded as things to be consumed and kept track of. The desire to experience it all has created a sense that we can somehow speed up life. We are deceived into thinking that the rapid consumption of culture will bring us closer to fulfillment. 

At the heart of this problem is our perpetual distraction, a sensation we Gen Z-ers know well and the next generation will feel even more acutely. If we think the technology problem is bad now, just wait. We worry, rightly so, about depleting literacy rates among children; my colleagues Andrina and Ritisha dissect the topic wonderfully in their article “Declining literacy in youth raises concern.” But creeping into our collective consciousness is another deeply disturbing idea, perhaps one that bothers even more in the way it reshapes how we see ourselves. We are slowly abandoning reading, not just as a skill, but as a way to reflect on our own humanity. This loss is a little more subtle. We’re not exactly banned from the pleasure of reflection yet, but the ability to let art work its way into us without interruption is slipping away. Reading is something we feel we must “get through,” and a quiet headspace we’re less and less likely to visit. We are, in effect, being trained to skim life rather than immerse ourselves in it. And this, I think, is the real crisis – the urge to simply finish works of art has replaced the urge to savor and be changed by them.

Half-joking, I have confessed to friends that I overload myself with English classes not only because I love the subject, but out of a need to anchor myself, to be forced into reading something, anything, for a set amount of time. And when I am, it’s as though a part of me reawakens – not only that child who loved books, but someone who is, however briefly, attuned to a deeper truth. This is a sense of near-spiritual fulfillment that only comes from getting to know and love a story or poem that demands my undivided attention. Yet even with this “forced reading,” I feel a preemptive sense of failure that I will miss something important, or won’t extract every possible meaning of a text. The act of consuming something, especially something meaningful, has been made to feel like it should be total and perfect. I still feel that lingering want to consume and understand it all, as if missing a single piece will make my experience incomplete. 

When I need strength in these times, I look back on those moments in my childhood, of completing summer library challenges sometimes with 80 books a year. That self didn’t care if I was reading the right thing, or the right way, or missing out on some nuanced critique; I read with abandon, driven by a pure curiosity that had no use for overthinking. That world is distant now, but I return to it when I need grounding. One way of doing this is going back to books I used to love. Right now, I’m rereading Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, a novel I distinctly remember finishing in a single sitting the night I first read it about three years ago. There was no room for it to linger on a to-be-read list. There was no pressure to consume or beat to death with overanalysis, just enjoy. I don’t know if I can truly say that about any book I’ve read recently, but I hope to be there one day.

Local libraries, like the Shorewood Public Library (where I first borrowed Klara!) are amazing, and offer something that’s becoming harder and harder to find: a place where art and culture are still offered freely, no strings attached. Were the idea for such an institution to be brought up today, it would surely be laughed off by politicians and corporations – a place open to everyone, with no need to buy anything, simply an offering of what is good and valuable in the world. If we are to reclaim the joy in reading and engaging with culture, spaces like libraries must be cherished and protected. We must reclaim this childlike wonder and allow it to guide us back to art in a more authentic way. Only then can we begin to close the gap between our lists and our lives, and rediscover the most basic form of “consumption” – the kind that fills and motivates, bringing us into a deeper sense of connection with the world and each other.

Going back to Plath’s fig tree, even as the narrator, Esther, considers it in The Bell Jar, the figs sag and drop from lack of true engagement. The overwhelming abundance of possibilities paralyzes her. Esther realizes she must do something, and so, she leaves the tree and goes to a restaurant to indulge in one of life’s most simple pleasures – food. Similarly, we might find solace in leaving our fig trees for one moment. Perhaps we can find joy in savoring a single piece of music, a single film, or a single book. By starting the return to that original purpose – the experience of art as a source of meaning and community – we can stop starving at what should be a feast. Reading, art, culture; these are the everlasting things. For the adult, the child, the community, and the world, they are waiting.