I've set an intention to read more books and less on Medium. It's easy to fall into the habit of obligation reading reading on Medium. The last time felt that happen I took a long break from the platform. This time I hope to balance rather than bolt. Your stories I will continue to read because they are that good.

I had bolted in 2022. I didn't come back in earnest until 2023. In the fall of '22 I came back for a few weeks and wrote this intro to my first piece back (as you're relatively new here, you might benefit from my experience with Medium burnout):

"Hello friends, followers, and subscribers. Some of you have noticed my disengagement from the platform. I became too attached to the social media aspects of Medium and this became a net energy drain and I made a not conscious decision to pull away. You may be wondering, what is a not conscious decision?! Well, I didn’t actively think about choosing that course of action. I found myself having no interest in engaging and much later while pondering my disengagement I concluded that such constituted an unconscious decision. Recently I made the conscious decision to start easing my way back in, being more discerning about the stories I read, trying to read only those that interest me rather than reading out of a misplaced sense of obligation to my Medium community and generally only leaving comments when I have something to add to the conversation. I think this introduction may prove relevant to the subject of this piece, the first I have written since early June, which is my response to

Ravyne Hawke

’s prompt “What thoughts arise within you as you read the [following] quote? … Do you agree with the quote? Disagree?”

The quote: To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

― Oscar Wilde"

Here's that essay: https://medium.com/@marcus17043/are-you-living-or-merely-existing-614f982432a5