Read, Clip, Copy and Share, File, Repeat

My favorite college professor told me if he didn’t learn something new every day, then he felt like he had let an unknown opportunity pass him by; that he had taken his time on the planet for granted that day.

As a broadcast journalism major, I was a news junkie, reading multiple newspapers and magazines a day and viewing feeds of both broadcast and cable news television stations to prepare for the student-produced nightly cable newscast. I consumed information like others consumed food; stuffing my mind with vast quantities of knowledge in an effort to create a balanced, newsworthy and entertaining twenty-eight minute program on a nightly basis, five times a week. 

As a writer, the news junkie transitioned easily to the research geek, and I continued to consume even more information in its evolving, electronic-based and easily accessible forms. My professor would be proud – I couldn’t help but learn something new each day, whether I wanted to or not.

But this desire for knowledge left me with an odd quirk that I haven’t been able to ditch since college: I absolutely CANNOT throw away a magazine in my possession unless I at least scan it cover to cover, clip articles and/or photos I find interesting or may need for future reference, copy and share articles/photos that family members and/or friends might find useful, file the paperwork, recycle the remainder of the magazines’ skeletons and repeat until the stack next to the bed is gone.

The range of publications are equally varied; as comforting as “Better Homes and Gardens”, “Midwest Living” and  “Parenting”, to “National Geographic”, “Newsweek” and “Time” for a brief overview of international and national features at hand, to “Aviation Weekly”, “Thrasher” and “Action Pursuit Games”, which all hint to past-life projects that I never quite lost interest in.

Oddly enough, my mom and sister have the same funny quirk, so we are constantly trading articles whenever we get together, or mailing them if the information is timely and pressing. This burden we carry, as creatures compelled to read and share information with others, is completely befuddling to my brother-in-law, who would gladly throw a lit match to our collections and free us of our shared responsibility.

As I am still on my summer house-cleaning binge, today I made it to the bottom of my magazine stack, a small bin next to my reading chair filled to the brim with clipped, glossy pages. Tomorrow evening I will sort, copy and file, and cross this item off my master “To Do” list.