Reading while listening

From time to time I catch myself listening to a podcast and also reading a book at the same time. It’s not a good habit because I probably won’t get into either. It’s easier when it’s a both in english. If one is my native language then I do get tripped up.

I wrote about last liminal year and the effects it had on me. I did not mention self-respect. I think engaging in behavior of disrespect towards yourself or in this case disrespecting the attention is in the context of virtue ethics a profound immoral act . This aligns with my feeling when I catch myself engaging in the aforementioned multimedial overload. The feeling itself might be thought pattern stemming from early childhood and parental amplification but I think it rings true on an intellectual level as well.

I do think self-respect leads to happiness and have seen the fruits of that every time I stay true to it. And on the flip side I can see the decrease in happiness when I have engaged in less self-respecting activities. That goes against a grain of maybe a fundamental part of my psyche. An aspect probably best described by Freud’s Autothanatos or the drive to regressively search for self-destruction. That might be an oversimplified model but it at least begins to shed a light on these dark corners and pulls them into the light to be examined and scrutinized without it becoming a criticism of my own character. And I don’t think it is universal.

Other people might see this behavior in themselves and not feel it to be disrespecting. So it might be a highly subjective valuation. But my valuation for myself is now clearer. It’s just something I have to deal with to be happy. It should be part of my psychological hygiene. Like brushing teeth. It should just be part of my life to keep media consumption separated.

I think of Glen Gould’s eccentricities when I catch myself reading and listening. He famously left the vacuum running while playing the piano.

This text is not really about reading or listening. I chose it as a digestible example because it might be a harmless self disrespecting behavior.