Do you feel overwhelmed by RSS?
No, for I have given up. I subscribe to:
- A few dozen RSS feeds and e-mail newsletters;
- some YouTube channels;
- a couple podcasts;
- and two print magazines.
There’s no getting through it, and it would be very easy to let the little unread badge on my various apps become a source of stress.
But somehow, I don’t.
When I think about the things sitting in my read-later list, it’s hard not to also think about the thousands of worthwhile books, movies, songs, blog posts, etc. that I never heard about. Compared to that, the small number of neglected feeds in my reader pale into insignificance.
In other words, the battle against the onslaught of media is well and truly lost. We never had a chance. There’s no point worrying about it.
I do a few things to try to make the best of what little time I have:
- I have a “newsletters” label in my e-mail but also an “old newsletters” label which is anything older than 6 months. Apart from a couple favourite writers, these get purged without much of a glance.
- Subscribing to a couple Widgets Weekly newsletters instead of a hundred tech blogs gives me plenty of high signal reading.
- If I find myself scrolling past the same thing repeatedly, accept it and mark it as read. It was a nice idea, but I’m just never going to watch a 90 minute doc about manhole covers or whatever.
- I try to understand that very few things I read or watch are as important in themselves as the habit of regularly exposing myself to new things.
- Important ideas tend to get repeated. There’ll be plenty of chances.
Umberto Eco has a good bit about books, which I’ll include here:
It is foolish to think that you have to read all the books you buy, as it is foolish to criticize those who buy more books than they will ever be able to read. It would be like saying that you should use all the cutlery or glasses or screwdrivers or drill bits you bought before buying new ones.
There are things in life that we need to always have plenty of supplies, even if we will only use a small portion.
If, for example, we consider books as medicine, we understand that it is good to have many at home rather than a few: when you want to feel better, then you go to the 'medicine closet' and choose a book. Not a random one, but the right book for that moment. That's why you should always have a nutrition choice!
Those who buy only one book, read only that one and then get rid of it. They simply apply the consumer mentality to books, that is, they consider them a consumer product, a good. Those who love books know that a book is anything but a commodity.
I try to apply this to media across the board. Not “how am I going to get through all this?” but “thank goodness, I’ll always have something to read.”
