It's that time of year when I set about cleaning the books, magazines and CDs I've accumulated in this location in this Far Place. In doing so today I couldn't help but notice a spectacular falling-off in terms of the number of magazines I read this year and last from the numbers in previous years. So far I've managed a single New York Review of Books for 2021 and haven't even thought about trying to get hold of any recent edition of Philosophy Now, these publications constituting the core of my reading of such publications.
The reason for the decline is clear. I read just as much as I used to, but it's stuff on the phone that's getting my attention these days - and, I suspect, the level of attention is thinner than what I used to bring to the somehow more actual, more real, pages of periodicals.
I tried to do something about this by forcing myself to read half of the October-November 2020 issue of Philosophy Now that's been sitting in our living room for months. This was hard work since the philosopher of choice for several articles was Hegel and I'm not simpatico in any way, shape or form. I feel vaguely virtuous for making progress, I suppose, and I'm hoping this is in some sense a good thing. Not entirely sure how, though.
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