There are too many people, movies, languages to learn/read/whatever.
It is impossible to experience/learn all of them. I do really feel sad for not being able to learn/read all of them.
What is the motivation behind my desire? Would you say satisfying my ego? I hope someone can figure out the motivation behind it (or already did and would like to share with us) and tell me/us whether this hunger to learn and read and experience is good or not.
I think that most people, at least if they are well-educated and have the opportunity, go through a stage where they strongly desire to read as many books as possible. Many may think similarly of movies and other stuff. It seems to them that this is a necessary part of having a meaningful life and being an intellectual person. In my experience, the typical age for this is high school, college, and the immediately after college.
Heading into middle age, this determination tends to die down, as other means of pursuing meaning in life replace it.
This crisis hit me pretty early. I used to just scoop a pile of books off a library shelf, tote them home and read them. I planned to read everything. Around age 9 or 10 I learned enough math and real world facts that I realized this was impossible. Not only could I never finish off the Library, but this was only a very small town library and, what’s more, new books came out every day worldwide. Heck, I only read English. It sounds funny now, but I was just a kid and wept for days inconsolable. That was when I learned the word ‘genre’ from a kind, far-sighted librarian.
If you want to know enough to understand what people are talking about have an opinion, you only need to read some. If you want deeper understanding then read more. When I was older and could see plays and movies, or learned about eras in history, and topics in science, and well, everything,the idea of a representive sample served me well.
As ITR champion said (my sincere apologies if you meant something else and I understood poorly) as you get older more meaning in life wells up from within replacing some of the thirst to pour in new external thoughts and ideas. I still love me some books and movies though!
Obviously I can’t say what the motivation might be for you, but in my case it was best outlined by Sharon Wegscheider Cruse’s astute observations on dysfunctional families, such as in this book (never mind the use of the word “alcoholic”, the principles apply to other types of dysfunctional environments as well).
Only you can say if your reading is interfering with your need to live a healthy lifestyle, but if you associate it with feelings of sadness, as you say, then getting some counseling can often help with that. It helped me quite a bit.
I’m starting to feel this way about TV shows. (There was even an article, that I can’t find of course, about this online recently.)
There used to be a small number of “must watch” TV shows, with “The Vast Wasteland” taking up most of network TV. But with basic and pay cable upping their game and streaming services jumping into the pool, there are a lot of really good TV shows out there.
And nowhere enough time. Ergo binge-watching.
One of these days I’m going to watch all the Marons I missed. I mean it.
I’m just about ready to retire, and haven’t stopped wanting to read everything yet. I’m way behind in the books I own, let alone the ones I’d like to get. But I’m trying to cut back on going to bookstores to catch up.
Reading the published sf book lists in Locus lets me know I’d never be able to keep up with even new books, which helps.
Doesn’t make me sad, maybe a bit frustrated.
And that I don’t care to watch much TV helps some also.
I’m going to make a list of classics I haven’t read yet and mix them with my backlog. Maybe that will help you feel more in control.
Humans have always liked to collect the whole set. We like completeness.
Lots of businesses have been founded on the idea of getting collectors hooked on buying stuff. Heck, some of us even try to read the SDMB every day to see all of what’s new here.
The OP & other folks upthread are simply falling for that natural human tendency. And as **MsKaren **said, it really doesn’t work when the collectible set is “all human knowledge” or “every page on the internet”. Or even “every episode of Star Trek / GoT / etc.”
The key is to recognize that “collect the whole set” is dumb maladaptive behavior in the modern world. Just like “always eat all the food in sight because there may be famine tomorrow” is maladaptive in today’s world.
Sure, you’re missing something when you choose to *not *watch every Star Trek episode. But since your time on Earth is finite, every second you spend actually watching Star Trek is a second you won’t spend doing something else. The complete world of experience in both time and place is (obviously) bigger than any one human can consume.
So you must choose. And since you must choose, the smart thing is to choose wisely. Each of us has a preference for wider versus deeper. Accept you’re not going to get both. Speaking just for me, I prefer wider not deeper. Which often means I must recognize and suppress the urge to collect the whole set.