Congratulations, You’re Forgettable
I read somewhere between sixty and eighty books a year. There is nothing remarkable about that; plenty of people read more.
The strange part is that I only read books published in the current year.
If a book came out in 2026, I'll read it. If it came out in 2025 and I missed it, I won't.
If it was published in 1983 or 1883 and universally recognized as a masterpiece, I will step over it on my way to a mediocre new release written by an author I never heard of.
I’ve been told this is strange.
I’ve also been told it’s irrational, limiting, and evidence of some undiagnosed condition that requires a specialist and several prescription medications.
They're right, and I can't defend it.
Maybe it's a mild form of OCD. Maybe it's my way of trying to stay current. Or maybe I enjoy discovering an idea before everyone else.
When I tell people this, they usually look at me the way you might look at someone who admits they keep a second refrigerator exclusively for mustard. Not dangerous. Not criminal. Just concerning.
But over the years I've realized something: everyone has a thing.
A friend started an album collection in 1972 and organizes each record, not by year, but by color. My roommate in college unplugged every appliance in our apartment before leaving in the morning. I once knew a woman who watched movies only after reading the spoilers. Uncertainty made her uncomfortable. She treated plot twists the way bomb squads treat suspicious packages.
None of it makes sense. All of it makes sense. Because people are strange.
At least they used to be.
Lately it feels as though the world has become engaged in a massive project to remove all of our weirdness. Every app promises optimization. Every influencer promises a system. Every plastic surgeon promises a face we have all seen before. Every technology promises to eliminate friction.
The message is always the same: there is a correct way to live, a correct way to think, a correct way to eat, a correct way to look, a correct way to work. A correct morning routine, a correct workout, a correct supplement, a correct answer. All that remains is for you to stop being yourself long enough to adopt it.
And I have noticed that none of the people selling these systems ever seem particularly happy. They always look exhausted. Their lives appear to consist of measuring things and then posting about the measurements.
"Here is my sleep score."
"Here is my recovery score."
"Here is my hydration score."
At some point, someone will announce that their digestive system is operating at peak efficiency. There will be charts. There will be metrics. Someone will inevitably write a book about it. Mel Robbins will have them on her podcast. Everyone will applaud.
The people I have admired most in my life were never efficient. But they were memorable.
My father would answer a simple question in a way that required refreshments. If you asked what time it was, there was a good chance you’d hear about a watch he owned in 1974 and the man who sold it to him. (I inherited this "gift.")
My aunt collected things nobody else would have noticed. Not valuable things. Not rare things. Just objects that, for reasons known only to her, deserved a second chance.
My former neighbor spoke to the plants in his garden. He worried about them. He photographed them. He checked on them after storms. I’ve known marriages that received less attention.
None of them were optimized. All of them were unique. Their oddities were not flaws; they were signatures. The things that made them difficult to understand were often the same things that made them worth knowing.
Maybe being weird serves a purpose. Maybe it is evidence that something inside us has resisted standardization, a reminder that we are not products moving through an assembly line. We are people. Unique people. Inconsistent people. People who read only new books, or old books, or no books at all. People who do things for reasons they cannot fully explain.
I worry that we are becoming so obsessed with efficiency that we are sanding away the rough edges that make human beings distinct.
We are automating our writing. Outsourcing our thinking. Filtering our faces and our emotions. Following identical routines, consuming identical content, repeating identical opinions. Social media promised self-expression and somehow delivered everyone a uniform.
We claim to celebrate individuality but embrace technologies that are specifically designed for conformity.
The world will keep trying to make us more efficient. Organizations, especially the big ones, will follow the same playbooks, use the same tools, and repeat the same ideas because that’s what everyone else is doing.
Maybe they’ll win.
I’m not betting on it.
Because when everyone becomes interchangeable, the advantage belongs to those who remain interesting and unforgettable.