Dear Fiction: You Are All That I Needed

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Since I began my journey taking smart notes and Zettelkasten I got into an obsessive learning mode. All I wanted was to fill my notes, make connections between them, and, as I thought, create lots of content. The result?

Reading extravaganza

I began reading nonfiction books as if my life depended on them. I was looking for knowledge while reading I was just thinking about what to add to my Zettelkasten till the point I read just for reading, I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. No wonder why I didn’t want to read anymore, instead I just watched tv and wasted my time doing nonsense. This was frustrating because I love books, I love to read but then, I did no more.

Internet devourer

My obsession didn’t stick just to books, while I was surfing online, I wanted to watch videos or read articles just for the sake of populating my notes. What a horrible loophole I went through.

In the end, I didn’t create any new content, sure, I have a lot of notes now but they seem so forced, I didn’t even relate with most of them. I just burned myself.

But now, here comes the savior

I returned to basics, that beautiful time when instead of watching a series episode I read a fiction book chapter, let my mind flow, picture what I was reading, going back to the roots which made me fall in love with reading. Without the pressure of learning, and definitely no pressure of taking notes and finding links to my already taken ones.

Fiction is something, in my own opinion, everybody should consume. It’s a pause, a break of everything. It gives this feeling of freedom, exploring, perhaps living other lives. I don’t know, it’s just awesome don’t you think?

Now I know I was doing my note-taking all wrong, it has to take time, grow the knowledge gradually as the content is being consumed organically. I won’t stop taking notes, I won’t stop reading nonfiction but for now, I’ll finish this awesome fiction book.

By the way, the book I’m currently reading is Hail Mary by Andy Weir, if someone already read it or is currently reading it too and want to share some thoughts drop a comment! But please, please, please…no spoilers.

Thanks for reading! 👽