if i've been stupid and unread for most of my life and i'm far beyond the free time of youth (about to clear 30), do you think it's too late to fix my shit, or can i "catch up", so to speak? i guess i'm asking how one goes about reading habitually and attaining a baseline level of intellectual and aesthetic cultivation when most of one's time is consumed by work and attempts to stay biologically alive, which seems to be all i can really get myself to do these days.
I don't know your circumstances which does limit how much practical advice I can give. I work a 9-5 office job and I definitely struggle to make time for the things that I care about - namely creative and learning pursuits. Ideally I would be devoting all of my free time to the many things I care about, whether important or just personally meaningful - but that is not my reality for reasons both fair (I work a job that is very emotionally demanding/traumatizing) and unflattering (I am addicted to looking at this microblogging website you may have heard of even though it is mostly quite boring). But that also means I have regular weekends, evenings off, do not deal with sudden "call-ins" or things like that, which is not universally the case.
I do think there's a couple assumptions you're making that might make this more difficult on you. I don't really know what a "baseline level of intellectual and aesthetic cultivation" is, and I think "stupid" is not a term I would apply to anyone that is actually interested in learning. Starting from a position of harsh reflection on yourself is just going to make it harder to cultivate the habits you want. In particular the framing of needing to "fix your shit" or "catch up" assumes that you are behind in some way, it creates a sense of pressure and external invalidation that I think is not just wrong and unfair to yourself but self-defeating. The fact that you experience curiosity and desire to learn things you don't know is already putting you a few steps ahead of the average person and miles ahead of the average American. What's important is that this be something that emerges from you as a *desire* - not as an arbitrary standard you see yourself as already failing to meet.
So with that in mind here are some of the things that I do to try and stay engaged:
1 - I personally try to arrange my time so that every week, even if it won't be every day, I am spending a little time on something that matters to me. That might be practicing a song on guitar, or watching an artsy movie, or reading an article I've been meaning to get around to, or working my way through a shorter book on a free afternoon. Is it "enough"? Well, nothing ever feels like enough, but it is at least something, and it isn't Phone (source of all evil). I have a weekly schedule I use for these purposes, but I think just figuring out where your free time lies, how you can realistically fill it given your time and energy constraints, and setting some goals (I like a mix of "realistic" and "aspirational" goals) can jumpstart you.
2 - I think that doing things with others is frequently really useful. Book clubs, movie nights, museum outings if there's anything interesting in your area, these are all ways of getting intellectual/aesthetic stimulation that are not Phone and that are also fun because you're with people you like or have rapport and a common interest with. For nearly the past two years a few friends and I have been using a group setting to work through various things that we're interested in: Capital Volume I, Frantz Fanon, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and in the fall we're watching Kubrick's filmography. Some other friends and I do a Japanese cinema club (which sometimes dabbles in other non-Anglo cinema). I also personally benefit a little bit from the external pressure of being obligated to others. Plus a diversity of perspective is often more rewarding than solitary monastic reflection.
3 - If finding the motivation is difficult, combining it with something else that you *have* to do in some way can sometimes be helpful. A few examples:
I have been paying for voice training lessons, and I would like to get my money's worth, so I practice. One way I practice is reading works of theory I've been meaning to get around to, or entries in various internet encyclopedias, out loud.
I like to listen to my history podcasts while cooking or doing laundry, stopping to take notes on my laptop along the way. (The tradeoff here is that multitasking divides your attention, though I think the note-taking helps keep me grounded - I think YMMV on striking that balance.)
I am trying to make the habit of not using my phone on the bus and instead reading. I have a few books that are specifically better suited to reading on public transit (books of aphorisms like Beyond Good and Evil or Minima Moralia, or novellas or graphic novels if that's your bag) on rotation.
4 - I think you're putting a lot of emphasis on reading, and while I'm a big fan and defender of reading, it's not the only path towards intellectual stimulation. It might take a little investigating and due diligence, but there are lots of great history and philosophy podcasts, tons of free lecture series on YouTube, documentaries of all stripes. Video essays get a lot of flak for good reason, and like all social media based material I think they have inherent limits to their educational value, but there are some that I think are either interesting in themselves (a lot of Dan Olson's work on high-control groups and tech nonsense) or will at least point you in the direction of more interesting things (e.g. PhilosophyTube, who makes passable edutainment with really excellent bibliographies). Things like that can sometimes be more easily incorporated into a daily or weekly routine. Alternatively, if there's a big tome you want to read, you could pick one for the year or a six-month period (this is what I'm doing with The Second Sex - which I desperately need to start reading again), and maybe explore shorter articles along the way when questions come up, or as preparation ahead of time.
5 - You could always look for a syllabus on a subject you're interested in and basically follow it or tweak it as needed - I've done this before.
6 - If there's someone that I think is intellectually insightful, then when they mention something I don't know, I like to look it up and get a gloss on how it might relate to what they're talking about. I also have tried to work on being less afraid of looking like I don't know something - because there's nothing to be afraid of! We are often more afraid of looking foolish than actually being foolish, but these days I would much rather say "oh I'm not familiar, tell me more" and ask follow-up questions when someone mentions a writer they like or a physics concept or history topic they've been reading up on.
7 - This ties back into what I said first, but don't torture yourself. Slogging through books while feeling totally disengaged, reading stuff because you feel like you're "supposed to," trying to impress other people with how well-read you are, that's not what cultivating these habits is for. That doesn't mean "don't do hard stuff" nor does it mean that secondary sources are substitutes for reading the primary source. But I think part of the process of learning is cultivating a sense of judgment about your own values, tastes, limits, and styles of learning. If there have been times that you felt like you were learning a subject and it went well, maybe you can try and adapt that model or structure in some way to the topic you're taking an interest in.
For instance, I know that I simply don't enjoy reading huge history overviews (stuff that's called like "The Reformation: A History"), it overwhelms my brain and I feel like I am not absorbing the information adequately. So I try to find things to read that are shorter and/or more focused (like, for example, a biography of Luther, or a book on the Peasants' War, or about propaganda and the printing press), and just look for a good podcast or lecture series if I want to learn about that subject in a more "overview" format. That was how I liked learning history in an academic setting: listening to and taking notes on overview lectures in conjunction with reading a focused book.
And, if it helps, I feel you! It is hard to stay engaged and curious when you're worn out or burnt out. It is hard to juggle a lot of different things you want to learn. I've read, watched, and listened to a lot in my life and yet I still think I've barely scratched the surface of all the things I want to know about, let alone all the things there are to know and experience. I think it is always admirable to try and improve one's skills and grow one's capabilities.
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