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I may stop reading a book when I’m still near the beginning, but once I’m a third of the way through, I generally stick with it, even if I’m not enjoying myself. That is notable because I stopped reading a book (that I was a third of the way through) after I had the most amazing day last week.

I woke up and took my time drinking my coffee while reading in bed. I ate bread and butter without thinking about the calories. I meditated. I grabbed water ice with the ChickieNob and then bought myself six books at the used bookstore. I watched television. I started a new book, got several chapters in… and decided I hated it.

And then I felt depressed because my amazing day was over.

I don’t take days off. I usually work part of each weekend day, and if I’m not working, I’m volunteering or running errands or doing something for someone else. But I decided I needed this––a full day for myself. But that final book: I thought I would love it, and I felt like I should read it because it was connected to a project I’m working on. But it was like ending the perfect day by walking through literary mud. This book was a slog. And it was irritating. But I kept it going until bed.

Until the next day when my cousin pointed out that I should (1) stop reading it and (2) read the newish Anthony Horowitz book instead that I knew I would love. Because holding books for a future time is pointless. Read the books you’re excited to read now because there will always be new books you’re excited about in the future. It made me think about how I used to save my Halloween candy as a kid, waiting for a better time to eat it in the future. It would inevitably go bad and be tossed months down the road. Uneaten.

Letting books sit there unread for some future point when I’ll be more deserving of joy? Saving candy for some time in the future when I’ll be more worthy of the calories? Tucking away every small thing that could make me happy for a future point that I almost never acknowledge is here? THAT is a recipe for burnout.

I got the Anthony Horowitz book. I am loving it hardcore.

The Guardian had an article a few weeks ago about doing a joy audit. These words got under my skin: “Many of us treat joy like the good china, only warranted on special occasions. Even if we know it is within our reach, we may not see it is within our control.” So many things aren’t under my control, but which books I read (and taking days to myself) are.

So there’s that. And the article has good ideas if you’re looking to bring more joy into your life.

New Republic had an article about “responsible tourism” and whether it’s ethical to travel. At all. There are all the benefits of travel; it exposes you to new people, new ideas, new experiences. But there are also all the drawbacks of travel: the impact on the environment, the exploitation of people, the division of haves and have nots.

As lovely as tourism is for the individual traveling and as helpful as that tourism can be for an economy, it is rarely a great thing for the world. After all, “tourism alone—that’s nonessential pleasure travel—is responsible for 8 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.”

Gulp.

We’re a travel family. We go on trips. Sometimes they’re to visit people. Often they’re to visit places. We contribute to that 8% of emissions. When we talk about climate change, we can’t just talk about the ways companies need to change. (They do.) We also need to talk about ways we need to change.

If you knew that staying put at home, keeping your movements to a small area, never taking an airplane, would help reverse the impact of climate change, would you do it?

The author admits that he won’t give up travel, even if he knows it’s the right thing to do. And I don’t think anyone will give up travel reading this post. I’m not giving up travel.

But this whole thing is food for thought.

It was inevitable. Someone invented a social network for one. Just you. You and all of your bots. Apparently it looks like a robust social network filled with people who are solely focused on what you have to say. But those people are bots. Bots who ask for nothing in return and are simply there to laugh at your jokes, tell you you’re clever, or console you when you’re down.

I don’t know if I think this is the smartest thing in the world — like a social network version of Her — or if it’s a dangerous way to circumvent social situations. I don’t feel the impulse to try it, and I’m glad it’s there for people who want it, though I worry that it will leave behind a residue of emptiness. Sort of the emotional equivalent of trying to exist on potato chips.

I also get nervous whenever an app maker promises that your words are private. Of course they’re not private. They’re being typed into a machine. Plus, I feel like if they need to point that out as the benefit that it may not actually be a benefit.

I don’t know. What do you think about this?

Another spoiler-free thought from Megan Angelo’s Followers. It’s once again from a 2051 section of the book, when people are televising their lives in an endless livestream a la The Truman Show.

On page 205, Marlow talks about the benefits of being watched, of living out her life online. She knows that if she ever got into trouble, millions of people would know instantly. And they would rush to help her, even if it was just to alert the authorities.

She knew there was a third thing keeping her safe: the network. Her followers … Her whole life, Marlow had been sure that if she got into trouble, the network would protect her.

I always think about this tale from the early days of the Internet. Ayelet Waldman wrote a blog post while in a depressive episode, and someone read it and reached out, staying on the phone until she called her psychiatrist. Waldman’s network may have saved her life.

And that type of story repeated over and over again in those early days of the Internet when we used it to connect rather than scream at one another. Okay, so maybe we screamed at each other back then, too–it’s not as if trolls were formed out of thin air in 2016. But it did feel like a different time online, even though stories like Waldman’s continue to happen today.

There is this weird sense of safety that comes from being online. I’m assuming (and maybe I’m wrong) that if I didn’t post for a week or two, someone would send me an email and inquire whether I was okay. It’s out of character; I post here at least five times per week. You tether me. And, hopefully, I tether you. We tether each other. That’s a network.

And networks, sometimes, save us.

Maybe that is why it is so disconcerting when someone stops blogging and never returns. You were tethered to this person by their story–and they were tethered to you. A closing post allows you to tie a loop. But slipping away with the story open feels like a snapped cord dangling in the air.

This isn’t a guilt trip. It’s just something I was thinking about as I read those lines. How much you all mean to me.

Another more thought-provoking, spoiler-free moment from Followers by Megan Angelo.

On page 288, a character receives a letter where the sender tries to explain why she did what she did. In other words, she did something horrible.

Think Jean Valjean in Les Misérables: Stealing is wrong. But the character adds context. In Les Misérables, we empathize with Jean Valjean. Sure, he did something wrong, but he only did it because he was starving. If we don’t feel anything, we’re as bad as Javert, who is held up as the antagonist. The “because” becomes just as important as the action, softening the edges.

Back to Followers, the writer of the letter has done something awful, but she’s trying to give context. (Telling you what she did would be a major spoiler. I want to talk about it, but I’ll wait a little while before I write it and mark that post as clearly containing a spoiler.)

The letter states:

There’s one thing I get that you never have. There aren’t actually heroes or victims or villains. Not in our story, and probably not in anyone else’s. I know you know this deep down: it’s all in the edit.

I am clearly the protagonist in my story. I may do terrible things, but that’s because I’m loveably flawed. Other people do terrible things, and my brain paints them as fully evil. I do something wrong, and there’s a “because.” Someone else does something wrong, and the only explanation is that they’re malicious. We are quick to forgive our friends. We are quick to find fault with our enemies… even if our enemies are politicians on Twitter or that annoying person who sends 14 insipid posts per day on the neighbour listserv, clogging your inbox.

It comes down to how we edit the situation; the story we tell ourselves.