It’s a Sunday. You fix your red-and-black checkered pajama pants, dust off your desk, and start charging up the computer. It’s clunky and makes a lot of noise when it turns on—also, it’s very, very slow.

You sit there patiently, looking at the ceiling, slightly spinning in your chair. The blue Microsoft classic desktop screen illuminates the room's walls. “Finally, it’s on,” you say under your breath. Your internet surfing begins—I mean, you were only on it to finish researching for your college paper due by the end of the week.

You research a bit, collect what you need, and you’re off—off to enjoy your Sunday in the real world.

Fast forward to 2026.

It’s the same you. You fix the spaghetti-sauce-stained pajama T-shirt that you’ve been wearing since Friday, and you dust off your desk, full of old and new coffee cups, a bag of chips, and scattered cords. You tend to sit at this desk a lot; in fact, your entire existence- approximately 7 to 9 hours of your day is spent there.

Your super-fast, miraculously thin computer charges in a second. And you’re already in, surfing the internet with multiple tabs open; next to you is your mini computer—your phone—with lots of short-form videos open. Your attention and mind are all over the place: one eye on the screen, one on the phone.

And before you know it, another day has been eaten away by hypnotic screens.

Let’s be honest with ourselves

I’m not trying to shame anyone with this question, but do you want to be 1998 you or 2026 you?

I think many of us are unfortunately 2026. Even if we’re not sitting at a desk with a computer, we carry a computer in our hands, and every second of our day is wasted looking at the internet of things without a clear aim or goal.

You see, the point of the internet back then was to research, do homework, find information, or share information, and then shut it off.

This is one of the key reasons why people aren't reading more today or using their time more wisely. We have distorted the internet and how we use it—or, we’ve long forgotten how it was meant to be used.

And it doesn’t help that mindless entertainment flooded the internet just as society started getting overwhelmed by inflation and debt. So I understand the desire to shut out the real world for a while to cope with all the stress it brings these days by zoning out into a screen.

But the internet was once a destination—a place—you had to physically get ready for. I still remember when my dad bought his first PC. He came into the house all dressed up, suit and tie, after a long day working at State Farms Insurance.

He had been saving up for his clunk of a computer for months, because we lived paycheck to paycheck, even back then in the last amazing era of the 90s, when everything was normal, and life had color.

I would hear his loud clacking at the computer, but it only lasted for so long, because he would shut it off after 30 minutes, bored, and shift his attention and time to the real world.

It’s as if we’re not on Earth anymore

Basically, I don’t have to write a long-winded, research-backed article proving how we all, as a collective society, are eating away our time by looking at screens.

I think we all know this by now. It’s OBVIOUS. And it’s EVERYWHERE.

Jonathan Haidt described it best in his book “The Anxious Generation,” as if today’s world is like we got displaced onto Mars and everywhere you look, people are looking at a tiny hand-held box. People aren’t people anymore. They’re not here. They’re on Mars.

After reading his book, I started paying more attention to those around me and viewing them through Jonathan Haidt's lens. It was perplexing. I don’t think we realize how weird this all is. Walking through the airport when I came back from my trip to Malaysia, I saw entire families sitting next to each other—mom, a dad, and two kids—and every single one of them was glaring into their phone. I looked over at the janitor, holding a mop and their bucket in one hand; they were also scrolling on their phone.

Have I teleported to Mars? I asked myself.

How to use your internet like it’s the 90s

The good news is, more and more people are becoming aware of this problem. Hence why you see tons of similar writings like mine on Substack and in major news platforms, discussing going analog and getting off the phone.

For example, the NY Times article “I Was Addicted to My Smartphone, So I Switched to a Flip Phone for a Month” by Brian X. Chen, or the article, "The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books" by Rose Horowitch in The Atlantic.

We get it. All any of us has to do is look at our screentime on our phone, and see a godly amount of hours we wasted.

But what can we do?

Well, there’s actually a lot we can do, but it has to come from the individual level. You and I. We have to make the individual choice everyday about how we spend our time. And this takes a level of awareness that people have become numb to.

So to assist you and I both on this, I made this super-simple bullet point rule book, I’m trying to live by day to day now, and it’s how to use the internet like the 90s:"

• Don’t reach for your phone. Only use the phone when you need to call or message someone. (easier said than done. I know. But it takes time.)

• Have an aim, a goal in mind? Sit at your laptop. If you don’t, no need to be on the computer.

• Lastly, this a whole different topic on its own that I can also rant hours about, when it comes to research, I no longer feel like the internet is entirely safe for that anymore. Physical books are where we need to gather and learn our information.

Oh, and read more.

I’m currently reading two books simultaneiously, it both keeps me preoccupied and tempted from wasting hours on the computer and the phone. I noticed I feel more grounded in myself as well.

The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell - So far, I’m on page 43 and can’t put the book down. Great read so far. It’s one of those books that you can’t stop reading.

And The Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini - I’m currently reading this one, a touching story to start out. It has me also instantly hooked. It cuts into the stark reality of a lot of children today. You feel their abandonment, their sadness, and the emotional whirlwind of their lives. I don’t want to spoil the story for you before you read it, so I’m holding back on giving every detail.

In the chat I’m plugging below, I’ll share updates on what I’m reading, how many pages, etc. And you can join along too, share with us what you’re reading and what page you are on.

For now, I hope you enjoyed my writing—I sort of like this spontaneous, laid-back style of writing I have going. At the end of the day, It’s Substack. I mean, we’re not writing novels on here.

Push To Read Book Club

I’m running a low-pressure reading space for all of my subscribers. Here are the conditions:

• Read whatever you want.

• Every Friday, you drop the page number that you’ve read up to. You can also share a favorite quote or snippet from the book you’re currently reading.

• There’s zero pressure. You can read 3 or even 50 pages. Whatever works for you.

The point is to keep us all motivated and consistently reading:

Your hands, sweaty, caked in old and new injuries-some scabbed over, and some fresh from jagged rock edges piercing your once-soft-skin-you fling your right arm over the ledge with every last ounce of strength left in you.

“Almost there…almost there….” you yell to yourself to give you that last motivational nudge to reach the peak of the mountain where there lay the barren pine shed. Your bag slips off your shoulder. In an instant, it’s gone, falling into the clouds that shroud the ground from view. After several minutes, you hear the loud crack of your bag and all its items hitting the Earth that lies thousands of feet below you - 29,031.7 feet to be exact.

“Thank God, my phone was in my pocket,” you mutter. “After all, that’s all that matters.”

You finally climb over the edge and stumble and clamor your way to the pine shed, wind gusting and the snow whiplashing you in the face. You push and shove against the shed’s snow-burrowed door. The door finally gives way, nearly tumbling you inside.

It’s eerily dark. There'‘s only one candle and a cot in the corner of the shed. And the smell of damp mold and aged pine hits your nose. You take a seat on the rickety cot, releasing a heavy cloud of dust and lint into the air. You immediately sneeze.

“Finally, I made it.” You take some deep, wheezy breaths, trying to calm your racing heart. You slowly feel your mind and body settle after your week-long, harrowing trip to reach this exact destination: the pine shed.

After a long pause, you frantically feel for your phone and hold it up above your head as if you’re Gollum, holding the precious Ring. “My precious”... you gurgle.

“Oh my god, there’s no internet!” “Wait!” you command yourself. You stammer onto the cot, praying it doesn’t give out under your weight, and hold the phone up as high as you can. “Please, Big Tech overlords, reach thy phone and give me thy internet!” you beg.

Ding… ding** ding* come in the notifications. “Yes!! “Yes! you scream to yourself. “It’s on" I did it!! I did it!!”

Less than 50 people have climbed all 14 of the tallest mountains in the world. And here you are in all your glory, in all your perseverance, having climbed one of the tallest mountains, reaching an astounding 33,500 feet. And once conquered, your sole intent and goal was to sit in that pine shed on the ledge of the mountain to rip yourself from the real, physical world so you could glare into your phone without anything or anyone taking your attention away from it.

So there you sat alone in a moldy pine shed at the tippy top of a mountain, ensnared by your phone.

The distractions are mounting - in the phone and in the world

In another life, I always wanted to be a fiction writer. So, of course, any chance I can start an article with fiction prose, I’m going to do that. I also didn’t want to bore you with an immediate factual analysis about a writer in a shed who is distracted from her writing.

But I couldn’t help but see stark similarities to our world today, just in different fonts.

In her book, The Writing Life, Annie Dillard documents the tedious work, the ins-and-outs, of the life of a writer:

“Appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark. When I furnished this study seven years ago, I pushed the long desk against a blank wall, so I could not see from either window. Once, fifteen years ago, I wrote in a cinder-block cell over a parking lot. It overlooked a tar-and-gravel roof. This pine shed under trees is not quite so good as the cinder-block study was, but it will do.”

She describes the pine shed on Cape Cod, isolated in nature, that she filled with basic tools so she wouldn’t constantly tempt herself to take her attention away from her desk and her writing.

Focus was her objective. She wanted to get her book done, was determined to do so, yet the world around her was way too distracting.

Little did she know, a time would come—our time currently—where the world was inundated with distractions on top of distractions. And to pull yourself away from the distractions of the digital world, you almost need to distract yourself with the real world.

Basically, the distractions she was trying to get away from are what we all need.

We need to touch grass. We need to feel the weight of paper in our hands, smell books, hear the patter of rain on the window, watch long grass sway in the wind, and stare at it long enough to calm our minds and bring ourselves back down to earth.

How can people be future writers & readers if they are not only combating the distractions of the real world but also this fake digital world we hold in our hands?

Step out of the digital pine shed

Annie had a discipline of facing blank walls to try and shut out the outside world. Yeah, it’s a pretty extreme method, but if it worked for her, kudos.

For all of us, I think our method should be to seek out Annie’s distractions and heal in them. Because the real world is healing. It’s not perfect, yes. But it does far less damage than the digital distractions.

Damages like—and I think we’ll keep hearing this sentiment more and more as the years go by—we have entered a post-literate society. And the new class divide will be those that can read and stay focused and those who cannot.

The phone has essentially become the mechanism of that divide.

Reading how Annie disciplined herself enough to self-isolate and fixate on writing shows me we can do this again—cut ourselves from digital distractions, build healthy habits around reading and writing, and cure our high-intake dopamine problem.

I will end by saying this: we collectively make a society, and society’s social contracts slowly unravel the more illiterate society becomes.

How so?

The social contract that society is built on relies on words, literature, text.

With an illiterate society, disinformation spreads, which causes a rise in panic and hostility, crime, loss of economic growth & expansion, and feudalism due to a breakdown of equal law—i.e., those who are in power will start to abuse their power once those at the bottom of the totem pole are left ignorant, illiterate, and without critical thinking skills—which we’re all seeing the inclings of now.

I’m not trying to be dramatic when I say this, but we all need to take a page out of Annie Dillard’s playbook and focus again. Focus on building stronger minds through reading and writing.

And if that means having to climb up a mountain that is 33,500 feet in the air, trekking through snow and blazing wind, and crawling into a shed just to get away from the distractions of our phones, then we might just need to do that.

Push To Read Book Club

I’m running a low-pressure reading space for all of my subscribers. Here are the conditions:

• Read whatever you want.

• Every Friday, you drop the page number that you’ve read up to. You can also share a favorite quote or snippet from the book you’re currently reading.

• There’s zero pressure. You can read 3 or even 50 pages. Whatever works for you.

The point is to keep us all motivated and consistently reading:

There’s something happening to libraries right now. And it should alarm us.

There are a few places that give me that nostalgic warmth, the type of comfort from my idyllic childhood. My after-school hours were spent wandering to my nearby red-weathered brick library, leafing through books, transfixed by their covers and the dizzying array of emotions they stirred in me.

Among them were the usual favorites I would return to again and again — Bridge to Terabithia, The Giver, Tuck Everlasting, & eventually the Harry Potter series, of course. I still remember the remnants of cigarette and hours-old coffee on his breath when my Teacher, Mr. Johnson, would sternly tell my classmates and me never to abandon books, visit libraries, and hold on to what was hard-fought for.

Hard-fought for? What does that even mean? Of course, my naive 12-year-old mind, spoiled by teeming libraries & active book clubs offered in school, wouldn’t understand this perplexing statement, but in the near future, “hard-fought for” would materialize in real time.

I never understood why Mr. Johnson was so passionate about physical books — books mostly written by authors who predate even me or you — and I never saw the value in libraries either, or what they offered me: a safe haven, a third space to nourish my reading habits. Yeah, I loved going to them, sure. And I felt proud at my impressionable age of 12, the hard laminate library card in hand, pretending it was my credit card that I would show to the librarian behind the tall, brown, cedar-smelling counter in exchange for a book. My spindly arms would hoist my stack of books to her, proudly smiling as she told me, “Wow, you’ve maxed out on books this month.”

I don’t think my children will ever know that feeling, nor will future generations to come. Sorry if that sounds a bit pessimistic.

Because Generation Alpha — weird way to label an entire generation — are the least privileged when it comes to the invaluable gift that libraries have given for thousands of years — a sanctuary that holds so much collective history, artistry in words, and stories that can carry beyond any one of our lifetimes.

You’re right, Mr. Johnson. Libraries, once seen as something of luxury, an aristocratic privilege, a gatekept realm to serve as a way to reinforce the classist divide amongst the wealthy and the poor, are now shells of nothingness, no foot traffic, no visitors to the dust-cloaked books that remain. Those who fought to give every human being, whether poor or rich, endless access to books are probably rolling over in their grave right now because children and most adults spend 7+ hours on average glaring at a flat portable screen in their pockets instead of a book.

Or, the fact that when children are even in the library, they look for the nearest computer to give them that quick hit of Roblox dopamine their mind is helplessly hooked on.

We’ve parted ourselves from the library for a cold, soulless digital void.

Subscribe now

Did we ever ask for a digital library?

I hate my e-book, my Kindle, my Apple iPad Pro. Absolutely hate them.

And I don’t plan to ever update them once wear and tear starts to accumulate. Oh, and let me not forget to mention the reading apps — ugh, don’t even get me started on the apps. I despise them.

• Libby

• Hooopla

• BorrowBox

• Open Library

• Kindle Unlimited

• Scribd

• Audible

• Goodreads

The list goes on and on…..

Humans always have a tendency to destroy what was once beautiful and beneficial to all of us, only for the profit of a few. We self-destruct time and time again. And now, libraries have sunk into the hollow, ever-growing, and ever-expanding vortex of the digital world.

This forever severing us from the tactile feel of textured pages and the smell of old print wafting from books — books with hard covers that yearned for the gliding of fingernails across them — that alone gave a pure rush of dopamine to earnest readers ready to dive headfirst into any book.

We traded all of this for books to be swallowed into a digital prison, with all their decadent pages and words locked behind a screen surrounded by a cold-metal casing in the shape of a square, making book burning easier for Big Tech.

Book burning, you say? Yes. It’s happening. Why wouldn’t it? Because it’s all about control in the end.

There’s an obvious thirst for control through tech, and the quickest way to control millions by the hands of a few is by severing people from pages, books, and authors, essentially warping our history and blurring our ability to decipher truth and falsehoods.

In the article, “Why is TikTok in This Book from 2006,” written by The New York Times, readers reported finding word swaps and changes in books to appeal to younger readers.

I can only think of one word to describe this: horrifying.

You see, in a digital prism, books can be changed in the snap of a finger, at the whims and wishes of those who rule Big Tech — what will be fact and fiction anymore? What will be true or false? How will we stay connected to our history and the authors whose words moved entire cultures?

You alienate people from gathering (libraries), and you destroy community. And then you take the information and own it (books in a digital prison). You have control.

Do you see where we are heading here?

We need a library renaissance

There’s a simple fix to all of this, but of course it’s easier said than done. But renaissances and revolutions, like a fire in the wind, can sweep through countries' borders, piercing the hearts and minds of people.

We are already witnessing this now. Across social media feeds, people are crying out for community; brain-rot-combating movements are picking up; and there's an urgent need for slowness and connection to our most humanistic roots—nature & kinship, surrounded by books and the physical warmth of a person next to you in that shared experience.

And all of this takes place in the library.

But who would have known that the final trade we made with our library card was the card itself.

Push To Read Silent Book Club (Weekly Chat)

I’m running a low-pressure reading space for all of my subscribers. Here are the conditions:

• Read whatever you want.

• Every Friday, you drop the page number that you’ve read up to. You can also share a favorite quote or snippet from the book you’re currently reading.

• There’s zero pressure. You can read 3 or even 50 pages. Whatever works for you.

The point is to keep us all motivated and consistently reading. See you there. [Join Here]

Between ex-Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon telling us that we’re all essentially going to be gone in 5 years, my job announcing they're moving AI into our internal software to “assist” us, and my cat nearly jumping out of my office window (I caught her mid-air) and damaging her leg, It’s been one hell of a week.

“I’m tired, Grandpa…” “Well, that’s too damn bad,” goes the saying….

Thank goodness there’s Substack, though. I genuinely look forward to writing and building a community here with other readers. Below, I've compiled a list of books I've recently bought and plan to read this month. You might know some of these, or you might not. I’ve also compiled a short list of short media I consumed this week, both digital and physical. The basis of these short dispatches is to encourage and help you swap ultra-fast, AI-invasive predictive algorithms for slow, humanistic forms of media.

The Book Section (What to read this month)

To challenge uncomfortable truths:

• Suffer a Witch: A Memoir by Joy McCullough —

  I’m going to be reading this one tonight. I hear it’s a tough read. McCullough interlaces historical records and trial testimony from her own ancestor, who was convicted in the Salem witch trials, alongside modern incidents of sexual assault and institutional silence. I typically don’t like reading such distressing books, but it brings to the forefront how women are still as much dismissed as they were 300 years ago.

To improve your empathy and understanding:

• Nesting by Róisín O’Donnell —

  Spousal abuse, control, fear, and having your life ripped from you are all laid out in this book. Though some of us can’t relate to the harrowing story of a woman stuck in an abusive, manipulative relationship, this is why reading it strengthens our ability to empathize and understand as she walks us through her story.

To increase your mental tolerance against loneliness and fear

• Seascraper by Benjamin Wood —

  I read this book last week; it was brilliantly written. Very descriptive text. The author is extremely good at planting you physically there, in a sense. This book reminded me of my brother, who found his stride later in life. He often deals with relentless anxiety day by day over what his future holds.

To thrust you in risk & resolution

• Endling by Maria Reva —

  This book is next on my reading list. This story follows a Ukrainian woman who’s a scientist studying extinct species, but she funds her research through the high-stakes mail-order bride trade. She gets caught up in a lot of craziness, but she shows how sometimes life requires you to step directly into risk.

To learn how to handle holding grief:

• The Names by Florence Knapp —

  This story follows three parallel timelines that fall into a single naming decision. It reveals the ways in which domestic violence fractures families across a lifetime. And Cora is at the center of this tragedy. Be ready to feel her rippling grief.

  Subscribe now

Slow media to digest this week instead of doomscrolling

We don’t always read. Let’s be honest about that. But when the book is tucked away, and we want other forms of media, it’s pivotal that we choose media that still challenges and nourishes our brains in the same way books do.

And I know we’re all very overwhelmed during the week, too. I mean, with our phones, the economy, our jobs, or lack thereof for people who have been laid off right now and are looking, then you have bills, rent; it’s debilitating mentally. I, like yourself, am under chronic mental fatigue and stress.

So I try to be more intentional about how I use the internet and my phone. I’m more self-aware and mindful about the media I consume and how I spend my time. It’s important to touch base with slow, intentional media:

• The Long-Form Film: The Prestige (2006, Christopher Nolan) — Okay, a movie? Yes, a movie. The other night my husband opened this one up, and I had never seen it, to no surprise. I’m not much of a movie person; I almost feel like I’m wasting my time by watching one. But this was both entertaining and challenging to my inability to look at my phone. We know so many of us complain that we can’t focus on a full-length movie anymore because of rapid-firing algorithms and short-form video consumption. The characters speak in elaborate sentences and Victorian decorum, which is great ear training for classical and Victorian dialect.

• This conversation between Neil deGrasse Tyson and computer scientist Jaron Lanier (Neil deGrasse Tyson and Jaron Lanier on the AI Illusion): This was extremely uplifting because it sort of gave me a beacon of hope. I mean, the battle between machines and humans has only just started, and we’re constantly bombarded with ominous predictions about how it’ll take all of our jobs and wipe us out. But hearing these experts say it’s nothing but a myth and that there is no AI; there is only human collaboration was a breath of fresh air. Give it a listen. Train yourself to just listen for the full 9-minute video without looking at your phone once.

Push To Read Silent Book Club (Weekly Chat)

I’m running a low-pressure reading space for all of my subscribers. Here are the conditions:

• Read whatever you want.

• Every Friday, you drop the page number that you’ve read up to. You can also share a favorite quote or snippet from the book you’re currently reading.

• There’s zero pressure. You can read 3 or even 50 pages. Whatever works for you.

The point is to keep us all motivated and consistently reading. See you there. [Join Here]

These AI “authors” were publishing hundreds, if not thousands, of books in a single-frkn hour. In an hour, I can’t even get a single sentence written out while drafting my next Substack article, let alone a book.

Amazon quickly did their “damage control” and quietly stepped in. Though they did not ban these AI-slop publishers’ ability to publish AI-written brain rot, they just limited the number of books they can upload in a single day to three. And for that, thanks, Amazon. That solves everything.

I’m sure you also remember the late fiasco that happened to Shy Girl by Mia Ballard. Readers went on the witch hunt with her book, something like the modern-day Salem Witch Trials, though less devastating and violent, of course.

They were dissecting her book line by line. I only learned of it by binge-watching a three-hour video titled “I’m pretty sure this book is AI slop,” which amassed thousands of views within minutes.

“We are fucked” - says everyone with a brain

This brings me to this…we are indeed fucked. Readers and authors alike.

Bookstores are my home away from home, cafes too. All I need is a beautiful third space where I can sit for hours and binge-read with a nice side of an iced Americano. And lucky me that there’s a local cafe in my neighborhood that offers its library of books to customers. And I’m always there.

Pre-2020, when I went there with friends, I’d pick up any book and read the blurb. And if the summary of the book, of course, piqued my interest, I was reading it. I’d plop right down after having some nice small talk with the waiters and start diving headfirst into the book.

But now, after the Harry Potter-esque wizard Big Tech bros released all their wonderful AI tools—that we never asked for in the first place and never needed—they’re shoving them down our throats faster than my mom could get me to eat my broccoli as a defiant kid. And everyone, whether they admit it or not, is quietly offloading their writing and thinking ability to these “tools.”

Which, in large part, is birthing a new era of reader skepticism. Before I read the back cover or sample the first page of a book, I flip straight to the copyright page to check the publication year.

If it was published before 2020, I’m giving it a chance.

If it was published after, I’m going on a witch hunt. It’s not that I want to do this to current authors. But let’s be honest, it’s inevitable.

“We’re now meeting books with suspicoius and skeptical minds”

I’m almost apprehensive about reading books made in the post-generative-AI era. I want to know, with absolute certainty, that the book I took the effort to buy, read, and extract my time and energy from came from an authentic human mind pouring out their real human story, suffering, joy, and lived experience.

1. What this does for readers

Since the invention of paper and the scribe—which I imagine happened in a squalid cave up in some harrowing mountain from a grunting, fire-muttering caveman—there has always been a silent communication, a written contract, if you want to call it that, between the reader and the author. We, readers, traded our precious time with the author, and in return, they gave us a piece of their mind for us to both comprehend and gain from.

AI has now ripped that contract to shreds, stamped it out, and lit it on fire while it gleefully, deviously smiles from ear to ear. (I hate this thing, as you can tell. )

When AI can spit out hollow plot structures and monotone, sterile story lines in seconds, the reading experience changes. Instead of just sinking ourselves into the story, as we read, our brain is on alert mode:

• Constant skepticism: Were these words and ideas completely written by a large language model or a human?

• Eroded ability to comprehend: As we read the pages with skepticism, it hijacks our ability to even concentrate on what we read in the previous four to five sentences. By the end of the page, we don’t even know what the heck we read, feeling as though our comprehension is shot.

• Algorithmic-esque vibes in the book: Is this book purely coming from an artistic, imaginative, human-lived experience, or is it playing into the same vomit-inducing algorithm, “I’ll-feed-you-what-you-want-to-read,” slop?

2. What this does for new and current authors

I’ve come across numerous authors on my social feed who are ripping their hair out trying to get their books out there, resorting to posting influencer-style social media content, even though they would rather choke on a handful of nails.

Retreating to pre-2020 classic books is not only reactionary among readers; it’s expected, but at the cost of talented and deserving authors.

In this shitty AI-era, there’s also the need for speed. Everyone in their own right is like Vin Diesel. “Fast and Furious for books, Fast and Furious for writing, Fast and Furious for reading. Everything is built around fast and cheap consumption nowadays.

So authors are rushed. They can’t build on their stories, take their time, and pour their full artistry into them. And worse, they’re now resorting to using these LLM tools themselves to speed things up, for editing, for ideas. But it’s drowning out their true essence, their tone, what makes them, them. And eventually they, too, will start writing like the LLM’s.

“"Because people always read what is new instead of the best of all times, authors remain in the narrow circle of the ideas of their age, and the age sinks deeper and deeper into its own mire." — Arthur Schopenhauer, "On Books and Reading"

In this case, the mire is AI, and the new-age ideas are what it scrapes, creating a reverberating cycle of writer’s-rot.

3. How we can hedge against this as both readers and authors

I know we hate this era. But we’re here, ladies and gents. And there’s no walking this back. We can argue all day long about whether it’s just a tool or a replacement for the arts, but that doesn’t undo the untold damage currently unfolding.

As readers, to support authors, and as authors to supply readers with beautifully written books, we have to change how we discover and support literature.

• For authors, share your mess: I know most authors won’t want to, but share more behind the scenes. Most authors despise social media and would rather keep to themselves and let their books do the talking, but in this era of literature witch-hunting, showing the real person, their method of writing that goes into their books, is the only thing left to build trust.

• For readers, take that chance: Intentionally support these authors by giving them breathing room to not sound too polished. We need more erratic, jagged, and unedited work to be allowed to slip through the cracks, or pages, of their books.

Where we go from here…

Yes, the world is “over-automated” obsessed. But we readers and writers shouldn’t just give in and collapse under its wreckage. We certainly shouldn’t implode on one another. Both go hand in hand; thus, we are an interwoven community.

Literature has always been our retreat, the intimate bridge between two human minds speaking to each other through a white-offcream colored page housed in a thick book. I may not know the author personally, but as a reader, they let me peer straight into their mind. And I don’t want that to be lost because AI intrudes on that experience.

So let’s give every book, every author, every reader some grace in an emerging anti-human system.

You don’t need a bajillion unavailable hours to be a reader again.

Obviously, we all aren’t allotted that much free time in this stressful world of today. But all it takes is 15 minutes.

Here is my challenge for us tonight:

1. Pick a book, any book, preferably one that’s been collecting dust, unread or half-read.

2. Set a timer for 15 minutes.

3. Leave your phone in a different room.

Let’s reclaim and heal our focus together.

Buying endless books has become sort of like an artificial boost of joy for me—especially after lowering my social media consumption, I think it replaced the cheap dopamine I got from social media.

It’s also as if I’m becoming the very thing I dislike, one of those TikTok content creators who overconsume books just to create an aesthetic. Buying them to appear as though I read them, playing into an audience’s perception of who I falsely pretend to be.

And it’s not that I can’t finish the books; the worst part is that I feel like I’m doing a disservice somehow to the authors. Because a book isn’t just a collection of beautifully strung-together, cohesive words painting an orchestra of imagery in your mind. It’s also the canvas that the author poured aching hours, their energy, time, and spirit onto.

And should all of that effort just collect dust?

Sure, the author gets paid when we buy the book. And I’m sure they’re happiest when they can pay their compounding bills in this soulless system that constantly has us churning like a vapid hamster wheel.

But I would bet an author gets more thrill from knowing someone read their book over and over again, and that their words actually shifted someone’s worldview or opened up entire universes of imagination in their mind. Because at the end of the day it is their art.

Each book represents money I spent, true, but it also represents an untouched goal, a small commitment I broke with myself. When I leave a book unread, and multiple for that matter, it exposes my lack of focus in a way words can barely string together.

And I know more than anyone else that I have a focus problem; I say this as I grab for my phone for the 15th hundred time. But without further ado, here is the list of books I bought and then never finished. Although writing this article will hopefully prompt me to finish them. You tell me if you’ve read them or not.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

“The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. “

I remember spotting this book at a local, hidden coffee shop near my neighborhood. I live in Istanbul, Turkiye, by the way, so it’s not common that you’ll find English books lying around for sale in local shops. I thought, let this be the first book I read on my focus-healing journey.

Unfortunately, no. The book collected dust, not my fingers on its pages. And now, I don’t even know where the circus has gone - shameless play of words from the title.

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchit

“At the end of the day, whether one returns to the past or travels to the future, the present doesn’t change.”

This is another book I picked up on my walk home. It also collected dust and got lost. Where it went? I have no clue. I think it fell somewhere in the crevices of my bookshelf.

But I guess now I’ll never know before the coffee gets cold.

Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

”There was something very special, but it wasn’t inside Rosa. It was inside those who loved her.”

This one resides in my Kindle, and I still haven't read it. It’s definitely on my list of books I need to finish. Though that list keeps increasing day by day. One day, fingers crossed, I’ll get to it.

It’s one of those books I could easily see holding my attention as I read its pages. I’m a chronic daydreamer, so sometimes I’m reading but not really reading, if you know what I mean. My mind often trails off into daydream land, and before I know it, I don’t even know what I read in the past 5 or 6 pages. But this one, I feel, would spill into my daydreams.

Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

”All that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. “

This is another one that sits idly in my Kindle, which shields it from collecting dust, of course. But unfortunately, I haven’t managed to push past the 36% mark. And it’s not due to the book not being good; it’s great, actually. Life just pulled me in a different direction, I guess. I need to pull my direction back to this as soon as possible.

Buying books can easily become a quick dopamine hit. But unless we train ourselves to read what we buy, we’re just hooked on the high of purchasing books and not actually committing to them.

And it’s easy to confuse the joy of buying a book with actually reading it, and as you can see, I’m one of those people. Guilty as charged.

So what about you? What are some books you have collecting dust and haven't read?

Join the 15-Minute Push To Read Unplugged Goal

You don't need a bajillion unavailable hours to be a reader again. We all aren’t allotted that much free time in this stressful world. But all it takes is 15 minutes.

Here is my challenge for us tonight:

1. Pick a book, any book, preferably one that’s been collecting dust, unread or half-read.

2. Set a timer for 15 minutes.

3. Leave your phone in a different room.

Let’s reclaim and heal our focus together this way.

I was at one time a habitual reader. Starting from the age of 8, books were my second source of entertainment other than playing outside until the street lights came on. I thrived and lived in books. And I believe books are what shaped my imaginative mind.

Fast forward to 2026, I’m 35, and read nowhere as near as I used to as a kid. Life did get in the way, but our world changed. I filled my time with screens.

I’m now stepping back, recognizing the harm, and reclaiming my attention for the sake of my brain health. I’ve also recognized that not only did my reading skills weaken, but also my literacy and writing skills. I am, in fact, like you. I want to strengthen what used to be strong. I’m no longer letting Big Tech siphon my attention and time. Our brain health and attention are precious commodities that they shouldn’t have easy access to. And not only do they have easy access to them, but they are abusing them for their capitalist benefit.

If you, like myself, feel like your brain isn’t quit snapping like it used to or are struggling to even pick up a book and read, then you’re in the right place. This newsletter is not for those who are already guided in the practice of reading, but it’s for those who don’t know how to start.

The Sunday Dispatch

Every week, I will put together three non-mainstream reads to nourish a different part of your mind. These reads will help you get jump-started on your cognitive health journey.

1. To Cultivate Empathy | The Human Experience

   

   “The Psychologist Carl Rogers and the Art of Active Listening” by M M Owen (Published in Aeon)

   The attention economy has profoundly affected people’s behavior. Everyone wants to talk, but no one wants to listen. This essay is about how true empathy requires us to be intentionally quiet. It offers a powerful reminder of what happens when we speak impatiently and how to hold space for another person's story and voice.

   👉 Read the essay on Aeon

2. To Spark Imagination | Curiosity & Ideas

   

   Twilight of the Velocipede (The Public Domain Review)

   This read gives you an interesting look at the 19th-century craze and panic surrounding early bicycles. Reading this opened my eyes to how we are also reacting to the advancements of AI. You see how people back then also reacted to rapid technological shifts, and it offers a surprising, mind-expanding mirror for how we process AI today.

   👉 Read the essay on The Public Domain Review

3. To Elevate Literary Skill | Prose & Craft

   

   In Praise of the Long and Complicated Sentence (Literary Hub)

   A masterclass on cadence and sentence architecture. It demonstrates how great prose works like music, showing you how to read (and write) expansive sentences that stretch your attention span without losing clarity.

   👉 Read the essay on Literary Hub

Before You Go

I challenge you to close your tabs, put your phone in another room, and pick one of these article/essays to read for the next hour.

And when you’re finished, leave a comment below or share one idea, sentence, or detail that stood out to you most.

Until next Sunday,

Rizzy from PushToRead