Bad Fruit
There’s too much stuff in the world. Most of it is bad, but some of it is good—yet there’s even too much of that. I’ve joked before that they should stop making movies. Partly, this was about my semi-facetious distrust of the medium, but goddamn, how am I ever even supposed to get through the ones we’ve already got?
I think everyone, but especially artists, tend to collect a lot of stuff. There’s so much art in the world, it’s easy to see something you like, draw some connecting threads to similar things, and add them to you “to watch / read / play / etc.” pile. Congratulations: you now have a backlog. Crucially, unfairly: just like in making art, it’s on you and only you to work through even this. My girlfriend continually talks about getting rid of some or all of our books. I’ve probably only read ~60% of the ones we’ve got (I’d love to find out the actual percentage of this, just for my own curiosity; though the number has got to be a little inflated as a book critic who gets shipped a bunch of galley copies).
Just like in making art, it’s on you and only you to work through even this.
Lately I’ve decided to try and do something about this. Probably nothing so extreme as a “depth year,” where you forgo anything new in order to properly appreciate what you’ve already got (first proposed by David Cain on his excellent blog Raptitude); I’m not sure such a dogmatic approach would be beneficial to me. But I did want to start coming up with some strategies, some processes to try and work through these.
For the time being, I’m doing a re-read of Murakami Haruki’s books, and filling in the few I’ve yet to read chronologically as I go. But I’m also trying to make more of a concerted effort to carve out time to read, rather than reading sporadically like I usually do. For now, this is after lunch and right before bed, times I normally want to take it slow for a bit. Already this has increased the amount I’m reading by a good bit. It’s always my goal to roughly read a book a week, but this almost always has come in big sprints where I read a few books back to back, and then nothing for a week or more, rather than something more consistent.
I’ve also wanted to get back into playing videogames. My precipitous fall-off from the medium I felt most connected to as a kid was probably always a natural part of growing up, but that doesn’t mean I’ve totally lost interest in them. There’s games I feel a deep nostalgic pull towards replaying, and of course games that pique my interest as I see trailers and coverage trickle out. But over the past few years, my interaction with games has been like a tasting menu: I’d yearn for some experience, play about an hour of it, and feel sated enough to move on. There are issues in videogame stories, true; but that’s not to say there aren’t successful narratives, experiences I feel deep satisfaction in seeing through to the end.
I finally reached the end of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom a few weeks ago, after spending about a year slowly progressing the narrative, but mostly just dipping my toes in for a half-hour at a time to explore something on horseback. I’ve made a list of the games I’ve started and not finished, and the ones I’ve wanted to play but haven’t, for whatever reason. After Zelda, I turned back to Triangle Strategy, another game I brought myself to the end of the journey but just couldn’t close the cover on; think I'll finish it in the next week.
I’m not setting a schedule on these like I’m trying to do with books; it’s more about commitment than consistency. My problem has been jumping around more than anything; I almost always see a book through to the end, and learned early on I was no good if I tried to read multiple books at once (I can now read a few books at once, but I keep them sufficiently different: a novel and nonfiction, a book in English and a book in Japanese, that sort of thing). Hopefully I’ll start seeing the credits roll on more games going forward.
Making a backlog is an act of love: it’s the recognition there are things in this life you want to give careful attention to.
The last major vector for my backlog is video content. I’ve recently bit the bullet and started using my NAS as a media server, instead of simply an online archive / backup. Despite endless complaining on the challenge getting such a system up and running is, I found it to be pretty painless. Now, the list of “Movies to Watch” I’ve kept on my notes app is now a scrollable library, where a watch is only a click away. We’re making our way through Anthony Bourdain’s shows again now, and have a few other titles in the queue.
Finally, I’m working at making progress on my ~650 video YouTube “Watch Later” playlist. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with YouTube over the years, from making videos as a high-schooler, to distaste at its moderation policies. But I’m definitely closer to the “love” side of the spectrum right now. I’m against algorithmic feeds in all social media—except YouTube. Somehow the YouTube algorithm exclusively excels at showing me two or three interesting looking videos whenever I hit the homepage: maybe this is sacrilege, but I don’t even know who I’m subscribed to right now. Still, a saved video or article isn’t any good if you don’t make time to watch / read it. Like with videogames, I’m not yet scheduling in time, but generally trying to be more consistent with making time to watch some of these. Right now, that often comes after dinner, before I go to journal.
Perhaps this is overstating it, but to me, making a backlog is an act of love: it’s the recognition there are things in this life you want to give careful attention to. Working through a backlog is a recognition of mortality: there’s only so much time in this life. One of my old bosses once told me something that’s stuck with me: “Life’s too short for bad fruit.” Not everything on my backlog is excellent, but at some point, you’ve got to prioritize. I find there's a better "hit rate" in works with a bit more distance and time to cement their status, but that's not why I'm doing it. But I feel no anxiety here. I'm sort of following my whims rather than relentlessly organizing my lists; just like in making art, what's most important is making consistent progress.
It's inherently a futile effort: I'd be filled with depression should I ever run out of books I wanted to read, for example. But I'll always take feeling like you've got too much you want to do than nothing interesting at all.
