Over the past 12 months, I’ve developed a worrying and regrettable habit of failing to finish books. To the left of my chair, there’s a pile of at least six works containing makeshift bookmarks – a couple of biographies, a couple of fictional works, a book about parenting and a complete history of painting written by an eminent nun.

Part of the problem is that I’m struggling to carve out any time to read. Having a baby is a recipe for chronic exhaustion, and chronic exhaustion is the enemy of the ardent reader. But the trend also speaks to the indecisiveness and inertia that has crept into my everyday behaviour as I’ve grown older. In addition to the books, I also have multiple computer games on the go, all in various stages of incompletion, dozens of songs in progress, demoed or partially recorded, not to mention multiple half-baked writing projects, each commenced in a fervour before momentum inevitably abandoned me.

So many ideas, projects and creative outlets – all of them unfinished. It’s reached the stage where simply completing an article for my website is cause for a punch-the-air celebration.

People say that life is about the journey, not the destination, which would in theory make the idea of finishing less important. And this makes sense when one considers that the ultimate destination for all of us is death. But from a practical day-to-day perspective, surely it’s more helpful to claim that life is about a series of journeys, punctuated by finish lines where we can rest, recuperate, reflect on the progress we’ve made, and admire the view before we go again. Without these tangible milestones, we risk succumbing to a sensation of permanent transit – never departing, never arriving, never really sure where we are in our journey.

Make no mistake – I’m not arguing against the value of continuity. It’s good that the news continues from one day to the next. That there’s always going to be more cricket. That The Archers meanders steadily on, as it has done since time immemorial, offering comfort and reassurance to the millions of listeners who have not yet realised (or more likely don’t care) that it’s patently ridiculous.

But there’s something about this age of digital ubiquity that seems to encourage the transit-like state at the expense of clearly-defined journeys and finish lines. YouTube never ends. Spotify will feed us and feed us forever. So will social media.

And each of these always-on, perpetually-updating content platforms has a financial incentive to hold our attention – for as long as possible, as often as possible. The upshot is that we spend our time wandering aimlessly around these platforms, forever shifting our attention back and forth until we’re finally interrupted by one of those irritating yet unavoidable human functions such as eating or sleep.

So maybe it’s entirely unsurprising that I have six unfinished books to the left of my chair. Finishing has become passé, out of sync with our culture and, above all, unprofitable. 

And with that, it’s time to punch the air.

Photo by Nathan Waters on Unsplash