Quote of the Day | 0116
whether you’re recording how many seconds it takes you to run a mile or how many books you read in a year, what you are really doing is finding a way to quantify your inner sense of self-worth. For some people, their self-worth is bound up in the way they look, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so physical fitness — the number of seconds shaved off personal-best times, the number of reps at a certain weight, and so on — becomes a convenient proxy. In my case, I care about being seen as smart. In our culture, bookishness is a signifier of intellectual capacity, so the more books I read, the smarter I must be. That no one else knows is not merely beside the point; it heightens the sense of achievement. I’m a genius, I’ve been quietly telling myself for the past 13 years, and nobody even knows it.
Michael Bourne, ‘My New Year’s Resolution: Read Fewer Books’
[x]#10680 fan woensdag 16 januari 2013 @ 16:26:52
