Just like what the internet told me, what one buys, including books they don’t read, actually speaks more about themselves. Not in a negative manner, such as wasting money, procrastination, or laziness, but because the unread books they purchase reveal more about who they are.
Unread or less-read books actually indicate that there is more they want or need to know and that there is so much more to discover in this endless universe. So, I did that too. Now the internet answered why I didn’t read my books, both electronic and physical. I bought them because of an undiagnosed FOMO, maybe; if I don’t do like others do, then I feel like I’m missing out lol.
So, now I subscribed to this managed hosting service for this app called BookStack. BookStack is a lightweight wiki software and a website that I pay rent for, which can be accessed at this site: bookstack.kadaikupi.space
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Personally, I very, very don’t know what to post or publish here. Sometimes it comes to my mind that I want to post low-quality content (shitpost) lol, and sometimes I want it to be a site to post quality information instead of low-quality. Or maybe both.
This showed me that there is so much for me to discover that I haven’t found anything, not even one thing, to post or publish on my wiki site.
Bookstack is cool!
I believe unread books have a long tradition. I remember some novel we had to read in school, talking about unread books. I believe that was The Great Gatsby (from 1925), where the new-rich people bought books as a status symbol and put them on their shelves. But they never read them and you could tell by how the pages hadn’t been separated. (Which was a thing to do back then.)
I believe they’re still some sort of a status symbol a century later, albeit a different one. I recently bought a book on Kotlin programming, because I’d really like to be able to program Android apps… But I didn’t read it (yet), so currently it’s just sitting there, collecting dust. But somehow the act of buying it and having it there, did something for me… It’s not a status symbol that I brag with to other people at all. But unless I muster up the time and actually read it, I still can’t code Android apps.
In that sense, I think there are various reasons why we collect books. And we’re all a bit “new-rich”, because information and text is available in abundance in the digital age. And you (and everyone) can easily afford to host a BookStack instance… But is it about the content? Is it useful? Or a status symbol to show off to other people? Or a plaything to tinker with, or like with me and the Kotlin book more wishful thinking than anything else? … Kind of depends on what you do with it.