New List

Ugh...I keep trying to write something and I'm not getting past the first few sentences.

I've been trying to read more lately.  More books, first and foremost, but also articles and commentaries on current events.  One of my aborted attempts at this post was inspired by an article about African American installation artist Kara Walker. 

More recently, I read an article about how the internet has become a giant library of top 10 listicles.  It's not too far from the truth, and as a lifelong list-maker myself, it hit home for me. The piece made the argument that the ever-expanding archive of ranked lists is really part of the capitalist machine to steer our collective consumption.  When I see a top 10 list, my gut reaction is to add the things on that list into one of my own lists.  I have a list of podcasts I want to listen to, a list of books I want to read, a list of movies I want to see, a list of recipes I want to make, a list of crafts I want to craft...the list goes on.  The part of me that wants to eat the rich and smash the patriarchy tells myself that I will only buy these things when I actually need a new one, or when someone asks me what I would like as a gift, or I will only borrow it from the library (I guess that one only works for books...)...

I could go on to defend myself with the notion that most of the lists I'm culling for my own list-fodder are written by people or groups that ascribe mainly to my own particular ideals, the deeper part of me knows that it's still all just part of the WANT machine that's been driving us more and more lately.  A large part of me knows I can never possibly listen to all the podcasts, read all the books, watch all the movies, bake all the cakes and knit all the hats because I simply don't have the time or money to do that and still go to work and exercise and eat right and sleep a full 8 hours every night.  That part of me is dying of FOMO every second.

A gentleman I know who used to work in the publishing industry told me that the reason for all the lists on the internet and all the franchise reboots in the movies and all the sampling and covering in music is that the planet earth is DESPERATE for content.  Always be (making) CONTENT so we can ALWAYS BE CONSUMING.

How can this possibly be?  I feel like I'm *figuratively* drowning in CONTENT. I can't even keep up with the articles I'm trying to read about how the content that's out there isn't even very good.  This entry I'm writing isn't very good, but that's because I'm trying to force myself to create content.

...

I know this is where I usually have a tidy little resolution where I find a way to resolve things for myself.  But the truth is, I really don't know how to stop making lists.  And the corollary to that is that I also want to remove things from the list...Hmmm...

New list:
1. Eat the rich.
2. Smash the patriarchy.

...

There's the denouement I was looking for.