Blaze through nonfiction books like butter

Really, how does one blaze through butter? Is it like slicing a stick of butter with a flaming sword?

I can’t help myself. That is a phrase that begs to be illustrated.

And it’s at exactly this moment, after I’ve drawn the silly thing, that I recall the phase “like a hot knife through butter”, which would have obviated the whole thing.

Pace begins to slowly meander toward the point

I blaze through fiction like butter. I sometimes stay up late to read a good book. I read fiction before bed. I squeeze in a few chapters here and there during my down time.

But I don’t do the same for nonfiction. I wait until I’m in the exact right mood, in the exact right environment. If it’s a book I want to post about on the blog, I want to take notes, so I want to have note-taking paraphernalia handy. If my circumstances or my mood don’t make it easy for me to take notes, I won’t read nonfiction.

Up until today, my plan for making this better (because I do want to read more nonfiction) was to make more time for it in the middle of the day, when my environment and my mood are conducive to it. That hasn’t been happening, and to be honest, it’s not likely to start happening anytime soon. I have too many other things I want to be doing, and I want to be doing those things even more than I want to be reading.

An epiphany lurks in wait… at… THE LIBRARY!

It hit me yesterday at the library. I was looking for some good fiction to read, because my fiction to-read list is woefully short. My nonfiction to-read list, on the other hand, is a mile long.

I enjoy reading nonfiction, so I’ll start acting like it.

I’m going to start reading nonfiction like I read fiction.

I’m not going to take notes.

I’m not going to concentrate and study it like a school textbook.

I’m going to read nonfiction for pleasure. Because really, that’s why I’m reading it. I’m reading it because I enjoy it.

As for writing reviews and blog posts, if it’s important enough to write about, it’ll be important enough for me to remember afterwards.

Why can’t something be both productive and fun?

Society teaches us that work must be separate from fun. This is very important to keep the control paradigm in place (the job culture, in particular) because it gives us a rationalization for why it’s okay to hate your job. Of course work can’t be fun. That’s just the way it is.

Bull. Shit.

I had fallen into the trap of “This is useful and productive, therefore it can’t be fun.” And I’m an entrepreneur! It’s kind of my job to do things that are both productive and fun. How embarrassing.

Now for the part where you make your life a little more awesome.

What do you do that’s both productive and fun?

What if you started treating it like it was simply fun, and let the productive part take care of itself?

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