I have a strangely haunting fear of not finishing a book. It is a sort of guilt and fear mixed together that causes me to keep the book and organize it on a shelf with other books I haven’t yet finished. As they pile up (sideways, that is), I have this fear that I will someday die without having finished them all. Weird, I know.
So, after having read and enjoyed many Jack Kerouac books, for example, I came across, yet again, that unfinished copy of Big Sur recently and I threw it away. I didn’t donate it to the Salvation Army. I didn’t put it up there on my “unfinished reading shelf.” I had the balls to just say: “You know what? This book sucks! I will NEVER have time set aside to waste on this particular book!” And I tossed it. And by ridding myself of it, I gained permission to actualize that I don’t have obsess my way to the end of something to know it’s not for me.
Now if I can just start learning how to walk out of movies, things will be even better! :)
