Polygamous, Monogamous, or Even a Bit Neurotic: What Type Are You These Days?

One at a time, or multiple here and there? Are you adventurous or tend to stick to a particular type? Do you tend to go through them rather quickly, and like to provide feedback and recommendations to others? If you ask Billy Connolly, he’d say he’s probably done all of the above throughout his life, and if I’m being honest, I’m guilty of it myself.

Truth be told, I might have even pushed polygamy to its limits not too long ago, one of the reasons why I was overdue for a timeout, to reassess my approach, take a breather, and fully appreciate an experience before rushing on to the next one. I mentioned that I was trying to achieve too many things at once to make up for the changes the pandemic brought our way. By doing so, even books turned into another task to complete rather than something to enjoy, acceptable behaviour if the reading serves training purposes, and some of it did, but definitely not recommendable for fiction.

So, despite having ‘worked’ through a plethora of books I could talk about in today’s literature post, I’d rather focus on the one I already hinted at, Ed Catmull’s Creativity, Inc., and how it helped me getting back on track, quite literally in this instance. In addition to that, I’d like to refer back to Billy Connolly’s Made in Scotland, as it introduced me to the concept of ‘reader types’, something that I found intriguing back then, and rather fitting this time around. But first things first, let me tell you about Ed’s book to start off with.

Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull

Do you remember Wall-E? The Pixar movie about the small waste-collecting robot, the ‘Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth’-Class, who spent his day cleaning up the planet, one trash cube at a time, until he met EVE (‘Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator’)? Actually, it doesn’t matter if you do or don’t because Creativity, Inc. will probably leave you with the urge to (re)watch the film, as it’s one of the ground-breaking projects Ed Catmull was involved in, a creative mind who entered the industry through the backdoor some might say.

From art, to physics, to movie animation — an odd transition to some, but to Ed it made sense and ultimately, allowed him to find his calling. While his personal and professional journey is inspirational in itself, his creativity-enhancing advice is definitely not something you want to bypass in a crisis, be it while managing an entire enterprise getting off course, a department that lost its spark, or you’re very own blockage you don’t quite know how to overcome.

Don’t identify with your idea, welcome candid feedback, consider mistakes as opportunity for growth, and most importantly, never stop questioning, are just a few of his guiding principles. The one that struck a chord with me at the time, was his definition of creativity as “unexpected connections between unrelated concepts or ideas”, something that only happens when you’re in the right mindset for those connections to occur — little aha moments you sometimes have when doing anything but working on the task at hand, be it an office chit-chat about the weekend (back in the day), a wander through nature without a goal in mind, or anything else that gets your ‘back burner’ working.

Pressing Pause and Getting Back Out There

Whilst trying to overcompensate for lost opportunities and lagging progression, I didn’t leave any time for that to happen. So, besides going on walks again, soaking up some sun with Spring finally marching in, allowing myself to smell the roses (or snowdrops, tulips, bluebells, you name it), I also decided to focus on a newly emerged area of my life which required more attention than anticipated at first. It even overtook my reading ambitions by adding two more chunky theory books to the pile, possibly the moment when the shift from pleasure to task-based reading happened.

Intentionally pressing the pause-button, stopping that polygamous task-driven behaviour, became a must and the best thing to do as it enabled me to pursue another new path this pandemic appeared to have opened up which now allows me to take myself and fellow walkers on weekend adventures. If you’ve been following along on social media, you might have seen hints of it already as I ventured through Surrey with hikers in tow. That’s right, they’re not strangers that happened to wander into the picture. They’re actually some of my happy hikers who willingly signed up to join me on outdoor adventures and enjoy/endure (you take your pick) some quirky facts along the way.

The ‘solotravel’-‘less’ theme continues to evolve as I’ve set off on a hike leader journey, a new pandemic shenanigans chapter I’ll happily share in more detail in the future, once I had a chance to let those experiences sink in and unexpected connections form. Connections that will hopefully trigger more abroad travel memories in the meantime as we continue reminiscing our way through this travel-less world whilst restrictions are slowly easing — one stage and one story at a time, to stick with the literary takeaway. 

With that in mind, let’s finish off today’s post with Billy Connolly’s reader types, which I might have been using slightly out of context so far — alluding to relationship behaviours was just too much fun not to. So, what are the types he mentioned and what do they actually refer to?

Reader Types and A Confederacy of Dunces

I’m sure there are many variations out there but here the ones Billy considered worth highlighting along with descriptions, whereby the first two are pretty self-explanatory I believe:

• The Polygamous Reader: Likes to venture through multiple books at once, a proper multitasker who tends to store copies in different places. Always ready to continue with a story no matter where he finds himself; at the start, middle, towards the end, at the station, shopping queue, tucked in bed; any place and time shall do.
• The Monogamous Reader: In contrast to above, this type likes to read through one book at a time, often even re-reading his favourites.
• The Extrovert Reader:  Best described as an adventurous reader, this type likes to explore and see what’s out there. No genre is safe, anything shall do that contains words, enters the sight, and piques the interest.
• The Introverted Reader: Opposite to the adventurer, the introverted reader likes to stick to one genre and fully embrace it. He likes to delve into the stories, identify with characters, and ponder about plot-lines — one to be avoided according to Billy.
• The Altruist Reader: This type likes to help others, provide recommendations of titles they’ve read before which can span a wide spectrum leading to endless lists for friends and family to enjoy, if they so wish.
• The Neurotic Reader: Those ones get easily distracted, tend to switch between multiple books, without the ability to retain plots and characters, not taking in what they just read, and ultimately, unlike the polygamous reader, not finishing any of the books at all.

It’s worth noting that your type can change throughout your life and you can also identify as multiple types at once since some are related to genres, others to volume for instance. Billy himself remembered having multiple books on a go when younger, one in every room or jacket pocket. In later years though, he found himself focusing on one book at a time, sometimes even re-reading them, to fully appreciate the story, with all its quirks and clever plot-lines which he might have missed the first time around — a bit like travelling as well I assume?!

One of the books he loves to re-read and recommend, being a monogamous altruist at times, is John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces, Sir Connolly’s ‘favourite book of all time’ as its cover proclaims — one I shall practice monogamy with this month, hoping to put that polygamous, perhaps even slightly neurotic streak of mine to rest.

What reader type do you tend to be? And what’s on your beside table these days? 📚🤓

If in need of further recommendations, click here to access previous book posts.