my library card, capitalism and i

Over the past couple of years I've been thinking on and off about getting a library card but I always found excuses not to. About two months ago I went to my local library and finally got one – a decisive blow against capitalism.

Now if using the library is free where you live you might wonder why I hesitated in the first place but here in Hamburg it actually costs money to get a library card. 45€ per year to be exact. That's not a huge amount of money of course but in an ideal world it would be free for everybody. At least the price is reduced to 20€ per year for disadvantaged people and children of parents without a job don't pay anything at all. But there is definitely some room to grow for a more fair and inclusive library system. Until then I pay gladly.

My excuses were never great and I knew that. They were the kind of excuses you use to justify why you just can't cook a healthy meal today or why you're really honestly just way too busy to exercise at the moment. So it didn't take much convincing for me to eventually give it a try.

I was cleaning my apartment and tried to regain some control over the chaos that naturally unfolds while living life. I threw away old mail, put important paperwork into folders, reintroduced a semblance of order to various drawers and shelves whose categories had gradually shifted from something specific to miscellaneous. And while I did so I piled up an increasingly high stack of books on the living room table. It became immediately obvious that there was no room for these books in my bookshelves, no matter how creatively I would try to use the available space. Sure, I could put some of my old Japanese text books in a box and hide them away in the basement but even then there were simply too many books. What's worse is that I hadn't even read half of them.

It's true and I'm the first to admit it: Whenever I'm in some kind of shopping area I gravitate towards the book stores and more often than not I walk out with a book that caught my eye to then put it on a pile somewhere around my living room and ignore it. It's like veiling the act of mindless consumerism by buying something intellectual like books makes it somehow less mindless or consumerist. At least I didn't buy cheap, unfairly produced clothes or other random things to clutter my living space. I bought a book! Reading is good and I will definitely, eventually, maybe read this one. And sometimes I even did.

I had slowly become somebody who more often bought and thought about reading books than he actually read books. The stack of unread books in front of me was proof of that. And it was hard to ignore. In addition to that my shelves also contained a lot of books I knew I would never read again. I couldn't help but feel a bit hypocritical. I regularly rant about how I'm shocked by the frequency and quantity of amazon packages I witness being delivered during my lunch time walks around my neighborhood. I'm definitely not the worst offender when it comes to consumerism and I haven't bought anything off amazon in a couple of years but I saw a chance to be less of a burden on this planet in an actionable way and took it.

As soon as I got my brand new library card, I noticed some immediate changes. First of all I started reading more - surprise! After the nice lady at the service desk handed me my card I looked around the library for a book that caught my eye and took home The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa. And not only did I start reading it straight away but I also finished it on the same weekend I checked it out! It turns out that the mere existence of a deadline by which I need to return the book is all I need to sit down and take the time to read. Even if that deadline is a generous 4 weeks with an option for up to two extensions by another 4 weeks each! I read three books that month. In addition to The Memory Police I finished The Left Hand Of Darkness and A Wizard Of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin. Followed by Susanna Clarke's Piranesi, Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu and Klara And The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro that makes 5 books in about two and a half months. Some heavy readers might call those rookie numbers but for me that's a lot!

Next, I noticed that the more time I spent reading, the less time I wasted paralyzed in front of some random YouTube video essay about whatever thing some guy somewhere decided to ramble about for multiple hours straight. Don't get me wrong. I love a good video essay and I regret no minute spent watching all the Action Button Reviews by Tim Rogers for example. But most of my time spent on YouTube is spent on content of a significantly lower quality so reducing that is no loss.

Finally, reading slowed down my spare time in a very healthy way. A logical conclusion of reduced YouTube and social media consumption. It's very easy to drown out your thoughts by pacifying yourself with the giant digital skinner boxes of our time. The first thing I noticed about my reduced screen time is the return of actual critical thought. Reading is a much slower activity than doom-scrolling and allows for thoughts and ideas that occur to actually linger for a while instead of immediately forcing them out by whatever reel, short or recommended video demands your attention next. I know that social media is bad, actually is by no means a new or revolutionary realization. But the difference between knowing that and feeling the effect is quite profound. The attention economy killed my creativity and I'm fighting to get it back. I'm going to war and my weapons are mindfulness, deceleration and the right to be bored without distraction.

Distracting myself less has lead to me being more proactive in my self-expression again. I made this site. I started writing again, even if it's just some sporadic journaling combined with the occasional "long-form" forum post at the moment. I enjoyed writing a lot when I was younger and I'm starting to remember why. Even if it still feels like I'm learning to walk again. I'm not as eloquent as others, or even my past self, and it still feels unfamiliar to flesh out my opinion beyond I did/didn't like this. These muscles haven't been flexed in quite some time. But it feels good to work them again.

I like the act of engaging more deeply with the media I consume. Thinking and reflecting on why and what I like about a book or a game enriches the whole experience in a way that actually made me care again. Like with books I played very little games in the past couple of years. Sure, I watched videos about them. Let's plays, video essays, reviews and the like. I listened to podcasts and I read the occasional video game news article. I also still bought games. Some of them I played. Few of them for a significant amount of time. Like a fat cat scoffing at dry food and letting it sit after two bites I sampled games and let them pile on, mostly unplayed. Encouraging myself to write about what I read and play made the whole process of engaging with media more mindful and fulfilling for me.

It definitely helps that I joined the Insert Credit Forums - a community full of people actually engaging more deeply and thoughtfully with games (and books!). A true safe haven on the internet and one of the few remaining places online that feels sane.

Reducing needless consumerism, regaining control of my time and attention, rediscovering a long suppressed need for creativity. I can't attribute all the things I wrote about solely to acquiring a library card but it surely feels like a meaningful step of the journey I currently find myself on. It definitely made me think more critically and start looking for things I can do again, instead of being caught in the defeatist paralysis capitalism wants us all to be stuck in, in order to exploit us and our planet unresisted.

I'm excited to be currently reading Slow Down by Kohei Saito to broaden my perspective on the topic. And while I'm doing that, I'm working on removing Spotify from my life. I already cancelled my subscription and am starting to curate my offline, file-based, high quality music collection. I refuse to be bombarded with pop-ups for Spotify Duo, banners for the next concert of whatever artist I don't care about or put up with the increasingly hostile and flat-out bad UI design. I also refuse to give money to a man that donates it to military AI technology.

I find myself in the process of slowly untangling myself a little more from the web of capitalism we all find ourselves in, and it feels good.