the goodreads reading challenge plagues my conscience

lodging the indie kid filter into my skull

remember when i said i was going to get political on here? well today is not that day!

like every other person with a deep rooted need to keep up with the resurgence of reading, i set myself up a good reads account. first mistake. for those who are unaware of the app, essentially good reads is a reading-based social media. you can track books you have read, leave reviews, join communities, list books you want to read, all sorts of cute little things like that. i think it’s actually one of my favourite forms of social media. however, that damn reading challenge feature is worse than nft’s (im joking put your weapons down). again, if you can’t guess, you set a goal for the number of books you want to read in a year, which at surface level is pretty harmless. for me however,the aim drifts from becoming a nice lil way to get back into reading, to something obsessively done for the sake of reaching the target. it evades the desire to read for fun and focuses on the satisfaction on a goal being reached. im aware there are probs numerous reasons why this annoys me so much. for one i enjoy books a lot less when i know there’s a countdown on how long i should be taking to read it. however, i do think a lot of my unease structures itself on the knowledge that the accomplishment is a tool. my goal for this year is 50 books, and i am currently halfway through february with 9 books (absolutely buzzing w myself) and the fact i can tell this to people seems more appealing than reading those books ever did.

now your’e probs thinking, ‘amber that’s your own fault for using a cute lil challenge as a vice for your own sense of achievement and competence’. and that is so true queen xxxx additionally i think this tendancy is unavoidable to some extent, as keeping up to date with media seems to be vital for social situations. but this issue feels larger. stick with me for this one…

the point i’m trying to make here is that, due to both myself and the patriarchy, i am never fully aware as to whether i’m doing something for myself or for my image. hobbies seem so much less enjoyable nowadays, since i registered that they will work towards my overall ‘vibe’, and moreover the category of woman i get place into. women’s notoriety as people must be incredibly backed up by a surplus of evidence, and the collection of this evidence, whether it be travelling, activism, baking whatever you may hold passion for, gets diluted to a mere flexing point in the eyes of men. this is in no way a hot take, but women do have to earn being interesting. a man can sit and crack a couple jokes and be seen as a great guy, no scrutiny. for women there are layers of almost procedure you need to go through to ensure you are viewed as valuable, an incessant grooming of how you appear that is never truly over. things i have once enjoyed have almost become bargaining chips for when i present myself, specifically to men. i think aesthetic holds a card here for sure, i no longer enjoy doing anything i cannot envision in a wes anderson film. i’m hardly going to make an insta boomerang of me taking the bins out. cant put lana del ray over everything. however baking becomes nice for insta stories. and that becomes more of a reason to do it over my own enjoyment. image building is my new hobby, and the constant obsession on how pretty your life is of course incredibly reductive, and having pretty little niches seems to be crutch used to validate a woman’s self worth. perhaps this is just me! do men feel the need to play fifa with a yankee candle on??? i wouldn’t know. but i do know that the vast majority of my life has to be seen through my minds inner fish-eye lense, praying that other people (more specifially men) will see it that way too and value me accordingly.

But how do we combat this as women? I think that convolutes the situation to a larger extent. it’s a lot less work to become a woman who doesn’t care about men’s opinions, and a lot easier and more realistic to aim to be a woman who wants to appear like she doesn’t care about men’s opinions. i can attempt to be the antithesis of these things, i can develop myself as a person and read my silly books and emulate a empowered cool girl who lives her life for her own pleasure, but i know that it isnt true. when I do this, I am simply filling another box. becoming worldly and experienced still feels vain to me. i will get to add mature and unbothered to my list of qualities that will drive odd men wild. a different breed of man will desire me, and i know i will emulate that desire intentionally. i know i will play up to this because without this silly little image what else am i granted? i shall put on my low waisted cargo pants under my belly button piercing!

i do think watching over this image is drilled into us, however my reliance on it is not something i enjoy. I think to some extent the good reads reading challenge has incidentally become a larger embodiment of this, whether fair or not. (not gna lie i forgot that’s how this train of thought began lol). I treat reaching the reading goal like a brownie badge, and it becomes some vain characteristic that gets attached to my list of cool sexy traits. yet another pro for when i indirectly try to sell myself (moreover an idea of me) to the next man with long hair in the tesco vegan isle. i am never fully certain if i read Brave New World because i wanted to or because i can utilize that fact to the best looking nerd in the music rooms. it’s as if i rely on these materialistic check boxes, otherwise i loose my value as a woman. even the act of self-improvement relies heavily on the fact if i have no personal and deeply introspective desire to improve, it doesnt matter because it will increase the quality of woman I get to present. awful of me to admit i know. the accumulation of qualities, of experience and worldliness can always be commodified for the male gaze, and i feel this has in some ways tricked out of properly enjoying my life, but also made me view myself as a product. this is my own fault, i have to learn to root my interest in things a less vain mindset, but i do think this is a knock on effect of wanting to be a desirable woman.

clearly, I am struggling with this one a little. I want to be a little worldly woman reading my Vonnegut on the train, but the enjoyment of this is forever diminished in the eyes of image and aesthetic. it can be a real drain on enjoyment. I say this as I put on eyeliner and make brew herbal tea in the cutest lil mug to write this essay. but seriously as nice as it may seem, please take moments to enjoy things without thinking how they look from a 2nd set of eyes. i definitely structure my day in accordance to how sexy it would look in a movie. and this can be fun, but i think looking a lil rough when I play animal crossing works to enjoy things again without this overarching sense of pressure and beauty. i’m aware I have strayed even further from my initial anger at good reads aha, but I do think it stems from the pursuit of vanity. at the end of the day, am i merely wanting to be seen instead of wanting to be happy? i hope not girlie because that would make me put my big old head in the oven!

(i love when i wrap an essay up in a healthy way! x)

thanku for reading, i rlly enjoyed getting this off my chest!