036: The Books I Forgot To Write About

On the nature of commitment and a round-up of books I didn't get to last year

Did I mention supreme joy? That is why I read: I want everything to be okay. That’s why I read when I was a lonely kid and that’s why I read now that I’m a scared adult.

Mary Ruefle, from “Someone Holding a Book”

Preamble

Commitment is tricky. It is part willpower and part values which, if my meanderings in brain science are vaguely correct, means it lives in the prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex. But it can be spurred on by emotions: loyalty, pride, pity, fear, and, I suppose, love (of the agape variety), which happen in the limbic system. Sometimes I think that commitment gets its start because of lust. We want something so much—a mocha cappuccino, a Pulitzer, a block-printed linen sundress, a man in short shorts, a Lincoln MKX—that we decide to do the things it will take to get it. All the good stuff requires some kind of commitment: friendship, sex (the good kind), partnerships (of all kinds), parenting, fitness, homemaking, wealth acquisition, the cultivation of e…