“All I have learned, I learned from books.” ― Abraham Lincoln
For many of us, this summer has been an overwhelming whirlwind of engagements and responsibilities, all taken on in the hope of regaining something we lost during the pandemic. Naturally, that’s impossible, and the feeling of inadequacy has left many of us with an emptiness that’s hard to describe. I’m told by psychologists that it’s a matter of expectations, reduced by necessity to a level that can be guaranteed not to disappoint. Things will not be as they were before the pandemic, so we mustn’t expect to feel as we did .
What is it we’re so intent on avoiding if we do take the psychologists’ advice and reduce our expectations now? It would appear it’s just disappointment, and frankly, I think we’ve all learned to live with a lot worse than that. But I do wonder if just taking time off to rest and read more wouldn’t help us find what we lost without actively looking for it. Too many of us have missed our usual summer read. Is that because we can’t find anything that entices us, or is it mostly about not being able to let our minds and imaginations wander because we’re trying too hard to catch up to something? Continue Reading
