
Luke Lombardi
I have always had obsessive behavior. Whether it be anxiety or deciding what to watch on TV, I am always obsessing over things.
Most of the time, this is a bad thing. The only time it is a good thing is when it comes to movies, television and reading books or comics.
I tell my family and friends all the time that I am lucky to live in the streaming age.
Due to my obsessive nature, I am a completist.
Whenever I want to read a book or watch a movie that is in the middle of a series, I force myself to read or watch all of it.
With any television show, even if it doesn’t matter where you start watching, I need to start from episode one. I have always been like this, and I personally enjoy it.
A side effect of being so obsessive is how many subscriptions I have.
With all of the services my household pays for, I won’t run out of things to watch or read anytime soon.
Since I have so many different things to engage myself in, I can watch whatever I want or read any genre I like at any time.
The other side effect of my obsession is how much media I can take in at once. For example, one week over the summer, I read eight books. Every book was at least 200 pages, which means I read over 1,600 pages. I have also had stretches where I have watched 20 or more episodes of a TV show in three days. Because of my obsessive nature, I tend to watch or read slightly more than I should. This causes me to get burnt out on media quickly, but because of the variety of media I have access to, I tend to go in cycles of obsessing over three or four shows or books at a time.
While this nature could be considered crazy or bad, I wouldn’t have it any other way. My obsessive nature is the main reason I read nearly as much as I do. Without this nature, I would be less in tune with the world and pop culture. Quite frankly, I would not be myself without my obsessive nature and my bingeing habits. During a time like this, where everyone is bored and going crazy, I am doing what I normally do, which brings some ease because I have something that isn’t far off from my normal.