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Squirrel!

I read this book because I thought it would be about ADHD. There's a bit of that in here, but the book covers the broader subject of distraction in general and how it affects relationships and friendships.

As I've been reading more about ADHD, it seems to me that not as many people have it as think they have it. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 8.1% of adults in the U.S. aged 18 to 44 have ADHD, and 8.7% of adolescents aged 13 to 18 have it. And yet conversations and memes about ADHD pervade the Internet, the very source of most folks' distraction.

Distraction is part of everyone's daily life now; our culture coddles it. We are pummeled by ads daily. We carry around devices that are constantly pinging, buzzing, jingling, and vying for our attention for the most mundane, trivial things. Everything is treated with importance. Your mom just commented on your cousin's post! You need to be alerted! That guy you met once six years ago posted a photo of his lunch! See it now! Here's an e-mail about a special at that restaurant you thought looked cool but will never go to! With everything pulling for our attention constantly, it's no wonder we all think we have an attention-deficit problem.

(Also, "attention deficit disorder" is a bit of a misnomer, I've read. But that's a point for another time.)

"At the heart of the current context is what we call the modern paradox: never before has it been so easy to stay in touch with so many people electronically, but rarely has it seemed so difficult to maintain genuine human closeness. Our electronic world has simultaneously allowed us and forced upon us a kind of emotional insulation and isolation from one another. What started as convenience has turned into a kind of extraverted loneliness: our world produces a massive, daily exchange of dialogue and data while the people participating in it feel curiously alone."

I had a lightbulb moment when reading this book: real-life friendships and relationships are work. They require maintenance and investment–checking in on each other, conversations over coffee (real or virtual), small gestures of appreciation, etc. They require regular upkeep, to which our distracted brains reply, "BORING." Who wants to put in time and effort when we can just tap the "Like" button and move on to the next notification?

The book focuses on marriages, but honestly it has good tips for relationships/friendships in general. It provides practical strategies and techniques to overcome the challenges of modern life. The tips are definitely cheesy at times, but the authors acknowledge that and even advise using it to your advantage, e.g, poke fun at the scripts and tips together while performing them.

It's already April, and I've read at least seven books this year. But I haven't posted about any of them, so according to Internet rules, none of them count.

I started the year with "The Only Astrology Book You'll Ever Need." This really did turn out to be the only one I'll ever need, but probably not in the way the author intended.

Now, I don't believe the arrangements of stars have an impact on my daily life, but astrology is everywhere in pop culture. Whether you want to or not, you know your sun sign, and possibly your moon and rising signs. But what does it all mean? How does it all work? Astrology has been described as a combination of math and magic, which intrigued me.

My initial plan was to read this cover to cover, so I'd know anything and everything about the inner workings of astrology. Um, I would not recommend that plan. There are a lot of paragraphs dedicated to how each specific sign interacts with another specific sign, which is really boring to read about: "These two signs can have a strong foundation of trust and a mutual desire for freedom. They can understand each other's feelings and thoughts intuitively," blah blah blah. I'll admit, I skipped over a lot of that.

I got to the math behind astral charts. I learned about planetary aspects (conjunctions, sextiles, squares, trines, quincunxes, and oppositions), cardinal points, cusps, and houses. I also appreciated the chapter dedicated to the history of astrology, pointing to the fact that the stars have been studied by several ancient cultures, including the Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans. And I did enjoy the origin stories behind each of the zodiac signs.

But at the end of the day… it's all made up. It's a belief system, an ideology designed to help people understand and interpret the world around them. I found myself asking over and over, "But why?" WHY is a trine aspect more favorable than a square one? The answer seemed to be, it just is. WHY is Mars the planet of action, libido, and aggression? I understand that in mythology, Mars was the Roman god of rage, passion, destruction, and war. But what came first, the planet's name or its alleged influence? If the ancients had decided to name that planet "Pete," would that change its astrological qualities? Again, the answers weren't there. "It just is."

I'm still fascinated by planetary movements and patterns. But I don't need to read any more books about astrology. This was the only astrology book I'll ever need.