New years and Resolutions

Last updated on Apr 1, 2022 5 min read Casual, Comments
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So 2020 is finally over and it’s the start of a new year. Many of us make a resolution at the beginning of the year, but fewer than 10% keep it for more than a few months. Personally, I don’t believe in the concept of resolutions - they’re nugatory and pointless in my opinion- yet I will attempt one this year.

Once upon a time, when I was younger, I used to be a voracious reader and read far too many books, some of which were too advanced for my age. But to my shock, I’ve completely lost the habit of reading books - to the best of memory, I read exactly one book last year (Vishy Anand’s autobiographical ‘Mind Master’). I wouldn’t say I have lost the habit of reading - I did read a lot of academic papers last year, but they do not lend themselves for casual discussion with friends and family- I’ve just lost the habit of reading books.

I would like to rectify that this year, and hence I make a resolution to read 52 books this year, one every week. I’m going to read books that I haven’t read before and also re-read some books, both non-fiction (to see how I interpret them with my more mature outlook) and fiction (for entertainment). I confess that when I was younger, the distribution of books I read would be 80-20 in favour of fiction against non-fiction. I hope to change that as well and bring down the disparity.

However, I’m not going to force my progression to be linear - some books deserve more time than others and some weeks I may not feel like reading a book- and expect myself to read exactly one book a week. Such an expectation would be the downfall of this resolution as it would cause unnecessary anxiety and even make reading books a chore or something to be ticked off a list instead of provoking thought and providing entertainment and recreation (I believe a major reason for the collapse of resolutions is the anxiety it causes and the way it makes a task chore-like). Nor am I going to be a pedant and consider it a failure if I don’t read 52 books. I will be satisfied if I return to the habit of reading books this year and keep to the spirit of the resolution, regardless of the number of books I read.

I am posting this on the internet so that it offers me some motivation and negative reinforcement. I don’t want someone reading this (if at all anyone visits this website), and showing a screenshot later next year of how I did not keep to my resolution.

I will update the following list of books I’ve read this year as and when I finish one. I shall not be keeping count - that will be left for the pedants out there. Wish me luck for I will need it to be among the 10%.

It’s 2022 now, and looking back at the previous year, I’ve averaged a little above a book a month which is lower than the initial goal I set, but still progress.

It can be noted that my reading occurs in spurts. Further, there is disappointment in the content I chose with many books that I’ve already read and too much of fiction.

I will continue and see how I improve this year. Hopefully both the number and the kind of books I read are better.

From February, my reading has entered a phase where too much is read to document each book. This is now my bookshelf of sorts. Following are the books I read in February (without dates for I stopped tracking those):

February

March

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Aparajith Raghuvir
Aparajith Raghuvir

My interests include systems, systems for AI, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.

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