Been sitting on this one for a while so I’m just going to put it out there.
We call ourselves a community and that’s true as far as it goes. We read, we discuss, we argue about interpretations. Book club behavior, basically. But be honest with yourself about what actually happens when a new writing drops. I don’t approach it the way I approach anything else I read. There’s a kind of preparation to it. I make coffee, I sit down properly, I read it twice before I let myself have opinions. That’s not book club. That’s practice.
I spent years helping people say things they couldn’t quite get out, and the pattern I know best is someone circling a word they’re afraid of. I think we’re circling “devotion.” We use “engagement,” “interest,” “fascination” — all these smaller, safer words. But fascination doesn’t explain why some of you have been here every week for months. Something keeps calling us back, and I don’t think it’s curiosity anymore.
I’m not saying we need robes and candles. I’m asking whether naming the thing honestly would change how we do it. In my day job you have to name what’s actually in the barrel before you can decide what it’s becoming. Feels relevant here.
So: are we readers who gather, or is a gathering that reads becoming something else? Genuinely want to know where people land on this.