Backlog

“Man’s reach should exceed his grasp.” Or so Robert Browning once said. Sometimes I doubt that wisdom, though.

I was thinking of that this morning as I gazed over the pile of books, movies and video games that have accrued while I’ve laid about the living room waiting for the ability to walk and talk properly to return. I accrued quite the haul, and that’s not even including the stuff that was already backlogged before it happened.

At last count, there are 27 video games, eight paperback novels, 18 Kindle downloads, three television series, one streaming-only series and six movies that await consumption. Some of those go back a year (or more), and all of them carry with them the faint whiff of guilt.

“I know I shouldn’t buy that. I have tons of other things I need to get to.” But I can’t help myself. (It’s only getting worse today, as God of War launches.) I know I’ll get to them… eventually. There will be some dry spot where either there is nothing new and interesting for me to fixate on or I lack the resources to obtain them, and then I’ll start sorting it out, but staring down the pile and wondering when that will happen leads to a giant blow from the “oh crap” hammer of despair.

It’s probably a weird thing to worry about, but I do. I suppose its time for some goal setting; by next week I’ll have finished Devil May Cry HD, read through Sleeping Beauties and PorterGirl, and watched all of the current season of National Treasure.

Sure I will. I’ll also finish Believe Me in that time, cure cancer and learn to exist entirely without sleep or food. Who knows? Still, it’s a place to start. I might actually at least make it through those two books, since I have a fully functioning iPad again. Fingers crossed.

What about you folks? Have media that must be consumed but that somehow hasn’t made it to the top of the stack, especially when you keep making the stack bigger? How do you feel about it? What’s next to tackle in the Everest of a backlog? Let us know down below!