ADHD

the misery of searching for stories that catch your interest, finding a rare nugget of gold, reading the entire fucking 400 chapters in a few days, and being unceremoniously dumped back into reality and faced with the ocean of absolute dogshit that people somehow find amazing.

i love how it wasnt a catchy book, romance, or whatever that peaked your interest.

It was the National Electric Code.

The national electric fucking code.

this is autism in full effect.

- Someone who is reading "Excuse me, sir, would. you like to buy a kilo of isopropyl bromide?", the biography of a man who started a chemical company. I know, thrilling.

If you'd like, two strategies:

I always keep a book on the John, and will pick it up any time I'm in the room. Gets me through that "first half is dry build" some books have, even if it's a paragraph at a time.

Other is audiobook+mindless game. I spend a decent chunk of my afternoons when I'm in this mode just playing Peglin or more recently Haste muted while the book goes.

This book on the John I've done since childhood, it's got me through some dense stuff, I'd definitely recommend it. Hope it helps!

As a kid I was enthralled. As a current adult, I do both, and the battle is tiring.

Ditto

...Au as in Gold?

Funny that you mention it, I was reading that book mere minutes ago! Always loved the movie as a kid and only recently got myself the first book. The style is so... odd, wacky, absurd, hilarious, that I just gotta keep reading

What? There's a few paragraphs in he first book, where Arthur and Ford Prefect are trapped inside the machines of the Heart of Gold's improbability drive, that is really just bonkers and confused the hell out of me. But the rest of the books was perfectly fine to read.

This could also just be from ADHD burnout. Many ADHD kids make it through to adulthood by burning up 10 times the energy of our peers. By the time we do get there, our reserves can be absolutely shot. I haven't made it back to reading books yet but I have found that I can sink into new non-digital hobbies like horticulture. My guess is that it uses a mental energy well that I haven't tapped yet, at least not completely.

I think I just have access to social media and YouTube now, so my required stimulation levels to read without getting a compulsion to do something whenever it gets slow are so much higher.

When I'm not at home, I can read for hours (e.g. at my parents' house)

I love The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I read it through as a teenager without an issue. Then as an adult, I "re-read" it again through audiobooks.

I've been trying to read the book itself again, but I keep losing track and thinking back to the audiobook, surprised at how easily I followed the story when I heard it read out loud. I may have to try using the audiobook while reading along this time. Thanks for the tip!

Cannot stress this method enough especially for information heavy books. Listening while reading along can be slow but I understand and remember the information so much better

I used the audio books when in doing something else.

Walking, laundry etc.

I can't just sit and listen the same way as I would reading it myself.

I use audio books to take up bandwidth when I'm working. A lot of what I do on a daily basis is pretty routine so they keep me on task like nothing else

Yeah I'm that way. My brain tunes out the speaking but if I'm actively engaged in a book I can do it. Depends on the book too.

I used to do that but i noticed that i remember almost nothing from audiobooks compared to reading since i'm always doing other stuff while listening and a book locks me in that moment cause i don't have a choice but to give it my full attention. Also i always put a song on repeat for each book or series to really connect the memory of the book to a song and i can listen to it years later and everything comes back :)

i have my security+ test tomorrow and despite all my free time i absolutely cannot focus on filling those gaps either