So…I saw your tweet.

You’re “bored”?

WOW!

I am…absolutely floored. Hopelessly lost in admiration!

You are everything I aspire to be.

Oh. Hold on.

…..

Back. I had to go and check what “bored” meant, just in case the definition had changed in recently months, but no! It’s the same! In essence, you’re saying you have run out of things to do that are worthy of interest. Which is just an incredible place to be.

HOW YOU MUST HAVE LIVED.

I mean, by being bored, you must have…

•  Eagerly delved into everything Stanford, Harvard and Yale are offering up on iTunes, entirely for free…

• …and then filled any gaps with Academic Earth and Khan Academy.

• Prepared every single foodstuff suggested by Cafe Ferdando, especially the Momofuku Milk Bar Cereal Milk Ice Cream…

• …and then did the same with Chez Pim‘s output  - with enormous emphasis on the Pad Thai.

• Backed up every single photo and critical document you own…

• …and then did it again, elsewhere, because you never know when the badsectorpocalypse will strike…

• …and even went as far as protecting all your precious bookmarks & settings on your favourite apps by going portable and sending a backup a copy to your USB or cloud drive?

• Read all The Morning News, then all of World Hum, then every scrap of archived material from Brain Pickings, rounding things off with the Paris Review. (Well done. You’ve read some of – and read about some of – the best writing on the Internet. Admirable way to spend a couple of decades. I applaud your dedication).

• Read Lord Of The Rings yet again, except following the route in Barbara Strachey’s Journeys Of Frodo (which can be previewed here because someone’s scanned them, but really, the book is a toe-wiggling joy – but you know that, having bought it, right?).

• Watched 100 lectures from the world’s top scientists…

• …and followed it up with a substantial dollop of TED-watching.

• Grasped the fundamentals of the 6,000+ living languages of the world.

• Successfully learned to do all 50 of these things…

• …and then somehow, against staggering odds, managing to fight your way through all 50 of these.

• Mapped yourself silly with the help of the incredible Strange Maps, GeoCurrents and BIG Map Blog.

• Read Nieman Storyboard until you learned how stories work…

• …and then written at least as many fiction and non-fiction books as Isaac Asimov.

• Sat outside and listened to the world – the birds, the weather and the bustle of humanity, the creak of your chair, the sound of your own breathing – until everything held absolutely zero novelty or interest for you. Been there? Done that? WOW.

• Learned to recite and draw the RCA Animates from memory.

• Read, and more importantly thunk deeply about, all the Change This manifestos.

• Addressed every lingering guilty regret, until you were satisfied you’d done absolutely everything you could to make amends, no matter how belatedly.

• And finally (because it’s important to have a sense of proportion here) – you’ve followed every single link in every single issue of Zunguzungu‘s Sunday Reading series.

I mean, there’s other stuff – but let’s face it, doing these things really ate up your free time. You’re allowed a little slack!

And I don’t want to sound unreasonable, of course. Or bitchy.

Anyway, I’ll let you get back to being bored.

Because you, my friend, deserve it.

Image: Shermeee.

I think I’ve found my motto for 2012.

(From the Laugh It’s Free Facebook group, via Mary Jo Manzares).

Yesterday, the travel blogging fundraiser Passports with Purpose met its target of $80,000 – and then kept going. Last I heard, they’d overshot by $8,000. And so for everyone who asked me to curry them (keep an eye on your post-Christmas mail, guys) and everyone who donated so generously…

Thank you.

That money will be building 2 libraries for Zambian children, in association with the non-profit literacy organisation Room To Read. All those donations, generated across so many travel blogs and fished out from so many pockets, will be putting books in front of young minds thirsty to learn about the world, filling heads with ideas and hearts with damnfool flights of fancy that might. just. work.

I started throwing curry around the world because enlibrarying people is a cause that’s important to me – because it touches on the core of who I am. Almost everything I am today, I owe to reading.

Okay. Now, I wrote the above paragraph a few days ago, and immediately rolled my eyes. Yes, Mike, that’s how to start a post. Revel in your Art. Maybe you can put up a photo of yourself swooning foppishly in a chaise longue, all velvet dressing gown and shinned shoes and a carefully maintained pasty pallor that speaks of an aversion to the Outdoors and its associated Common People. Maybe you can wax about your Great Calling and your desire to end your days tragically and syphilitically fighting for some Noble Cause, filching the Parthenon Marbles to return them to the Greek people before being gunned down in a cloud of wig-powder on the steps of the British Museum…

So I deleted it, and replaced it with something less true.

(Sometimes editing, like second-guessing, can make a mess of what you really meant).

The first adult book I ever read was Lord Of The Rings, and it took me 9 months. It sunk deep. Before that, I read things that taught me the basic mechanics of how to read. After that, I read things that taught me how to think.

Sometimes what I thought was “eh?”. I first fought my way through Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance when I was 14, and it might as well have been in Klingon for all the meaning I got from it. But that was part of the fun, the not-quite-understanding. It’s a delicious feeling. It’s why Haruki Murakami is so popular (that and the beautiful, strange, unpredictable way he writes). Reading above my intellectual capacity taught me the value of being baffled. When you’re baffled, your mind is perversely happy. It likes being baffled. Schools think the key to a well-tuned mind is remembering enormous amounts of stuff, but really, you just need a really good baffling on a regular basis when you’re at an impressionable age.

Good books resonate. Even if you only read a good book once, you experience it many times over. It comes back to you in strange moments, whispers in your ear about social justice and power and ingenuity and hope and faith and believing in yourself and in others, and it speaks in a language your heart understands better than your head. Good books are felt.

(Good bookmarks are also felt. Or soft leather. Failing that, try a nice big leaf).

I could go on. And in fact I intend to – just not right now. Instead, here are 7 books that sunk so far into me, for all sorts of reasons, in part or in whole, that I’m indistinguishable from them. They’re not necessarily the ones I found most enjoyable or thought-provoking, and I’m not claiming they’re a Top Ten of any kind. But they have influenced me, deeply. And so these books are keys to why I’m here right now, as Me.

What’s it all about? Oh come on.

Why is it so important to me? My first adult book was an epic journey, and it intoxicated me. I gurgled happily at every page, and the story filled my mind, right to the corners. And perhaps, just perhaps, that’s why I love to travel. If that’s the case – I may end up owing a career to this book. That’s a nice thought.

What’s it all about? The way we argue.

Why is it so important to me? Arguments are important. We need a way to convey differences of opinion. Problem is, most arguments are broken. Either they’re a battle for supremacy or they’re a way of reinforcing already-held opinions. Ever done the thing where you’re not listening to someone because you’re thinking up your next clever retort? Me too. Ever replied to something with the phrase “yes, but…”? After reading this book, I noticed how people do that all the time. “Yes, but…” is usually our fear and insecurity taking over our mouth, closing an open loop in our minds without bothering to explore what’s in it.

“Yes, but…” is how dreams die.

What’s it all about? A boy ends up in a mythical realm in the body of a full-grown knight.

Why is it so important to me? Because, as is usual with Gene Wolfe’s work, it’s effortless to read and challenging to follow. Wolfe has been described by Neil Gaiman as “the finest living male American writer of SF and fantasy – possibly the finest living American writer” – and hey, Neil Gaiman said that. So why is this book so important to me? Because it feels so utterly new in a genre so hackneyed. I’ve spent 30 years loving a genre that spent most of its time Xeroxing its master work. This is different, partly because it’s Gene Wolfe, but partly because it’s just so damn different. Read it. You’ll see.

(Just be prepared to reread it if you want to even partially understand what the hell’s going on).

Master entrepreneur-maker Chris Guillebeau has just released his second manifesto, in which he draws comparisons between building a successful career and playing a game like this.  I recommend grabbing a copy (it’s free) and having a read. Thinky stuff.

It also says a lot about why good computer games are as addictive, or even more addictive, than “real life”, and that’s a fascinating topic. People seek spiritual solace in games because they’re deeply structured, have a progressive trajectory (“levelling up” and the like) and have a clearly defined end point the player strives towards. That’s a really appealing alternative if your career aspirations are in a fuzzy place right now – and I know I’m not the only writer who has to be careful that his casual videogaming habits don’t turn semi-pro. (I remember reading that author Iain Banks apparently had to remove Civilization II from his PC’s hard drive so he could get his manuscripts completed on time).

But even though videogames offer an escape from more difficult and more rewarding activities (not knocking them, mind – we all need some amount of escapism)…they also have lessons to impart regarding real-world thinking. Chris’s manifesto fleshes out a number of these. I’m going to talk about one he doesn’t mention directly.

Namely, tank-rushing.

There’s a point in many modern games where I feel compelled to give up. It most commonly happens with RTS (real-time strategy) games, such as the Command & Conquer franchise. And it goes like this:

1. Start from scratch, with few resources. Everything is difficult and novel and shiny – and addictive as hell.

2. Things get blown up. BLAM! Hey, this is fun.

3. New ways to blow things up are unlocked (KA-BLAMMM!), and this is great fun.

4. The games gets harder and harder and more frantic…

5. …and the governing rules become clearer and clearer.

6. There comes a point where you understand the underlying mechanics of the game. The enemy is doing this, governed by that, and to beat it you have to do this and this and some of that. Suddenly, it’s not about outthinking or outsmarting the enemy – it’s about gathering enough resources and firepower to punch a hole through its defences. And those resources are available. And it’s just a matter of time. And the easiest way to do it is just to build a fleet of the most powerful units available, and throw them at the enemy in one great big rush. Blam, blam, BLAM.

The game has now fully unlocked, in your mind. There is nothing left for you to explore or grapple with. All you have to do now is the hard, plodding, dulling, routine slog of building up your forces and then overrunning the enemy in one armoured deluge. In short – the game’s challenge has been replaced with a chore. It just turned from Chess to Farmville.

The really crazy thing is that so many people continue playing games beyond this point. Sure, there’s the achievement of having completed the game, getting all those Steam Achievements, seeing that endgame animation. But in way too many games, that moment of intellectual disillusionment occurs as early as halfway through the game. Beyond it, your brain can switch off; its work is done. All you need to do is click your mouse button, mash your trigger and rely on your reflexes.

I’ve been in plenty of jobs like that.

Of course, it’s a little different in the real world. There’s money involved – that thing you need to earn a certain amount of to stay alive, and that always requires a certain amount of vocational trigger-mashing. Sometimes that’s also the only way to get the routine side of meaningful work done. But too much of it, and your brain – hell, your very soul – starts to die. When you’re tackling projects using tank-rush thinking, when you know how to do them before you even begin, when the end of your working day comes without surprise or novelty and their associated emotional payoffs, when you’re mashing your inner trigger all day long…

That’s not what you’re for.

So find a better game to play.

Image: Will Merydith