Aug
18
The Lists of Others
Filed Under Books
I love me some lists. Those around me, close to me, know it. I’m always within easy access of several lists of varying degrees of usefulness. Things to do. Things to buy. Things to teach my son. The beauty of our modern age, our first world dilemma, is that you can break down just about anything into bullet points. Need to get out of debt? Need to end an unhealthy relationship? Need to convince a nation to support an unjust military act? Everything looks a little clearer in a list.
Don’t get me started about PowerPoint, though. This application nearly ruined the bullet point for everyone.
So I’ve got these lists. Mostly, I move them around into different notebooks. I cross things off, add new items. I move from expensive Moleskines to cheapo spiral pocket notebooks and back. It strikes me as an old man thing to do. I see myself as a very old man, scribbling furiously in a notebook, relatives eyeing me restlessly. Maybe an old man, maybe a mad scientist, whatever it takes.
Imagine my pleasure and surprise upon finding Sasha Cagen’s To-Do List: From Buying Milk to Finding a Soul Mate, What Our Lists Reveal About Us
I so wanted to like this book. I think about my own lists and what they say about me: that I am forever trying to control the uncontrollable, that I am always in the process of chasing down the ideal form of myself, that I have wanted to reorganize my filing cabinet since 2002. Truly, loads of therapy material here. I like looking at my old notebooks like looking at old photographs. I was curious to see what others put in their own lists.
But like old photographs, I realized that I find my own lists interesting because I am in them. I have context, related memories. I look at a list and remember what I was doing, how I was feeling. I’m prodded, like an old song or smell.
And for the same reason, I found myself tired of this book a quarter of the way in. I think the book is a fantastic concept, but it just didn’t work for me. I need more context–I need to know a person before I can care about their lists. This is what keeps me from rooting through coworkers’ desks while they are at lunch, I suppose. Although connected by theme and content, the lists in this book felt disjointed, superficial. I would have preferred seeing the accumulated lists of one person over time, a character sketch over a lifetime of crossed off tasks, a life described only in terms of plans–accomplished and otherwise.
Still, it’s good to know that I am not alone in my list-making compulsion. And I did learn a little something about myself. So I’ll keep browsing the $3 bin at Border’s for more surprises.
