If there's one addiction that I seem to have no control over, and that's only getting worse with time, it's buying books. I love owning books. I love going to libraries and bookstores, and I love seeing our bookshelves at home fill up with new books to read.

For most of the posts I've written on this blog, I've been inspired by a book on our bookshelf. I pick up a book I read years ago, flip through the pages, and I'm immediately taken back to my experience reading it. I can vividly remember where I was and what stage of life I was in, especially for books that were transformative for me.

I think about this as we increasingly shift to digital tools, and I wonder what limitations we're placing on ourselves by moving away from paper. The vast majority of my documents and notes and to-do's live online, and there's no memory associated with them -- at least not the way there is with physical media. As someone who generally hates clutter, it would feel inefficient and wasteful for everything to live in print, so I don't think that's a viable solution. But it does make me consider what should live in the real world, and what is best online. Perhaps it's being intentional about which things would benefit from a deeper connection to them, and prioritizing their place in the physical world.