The Atlantic · 6 min read
On the small joys of finishing things
We’ve made a culture of starts. Bookmarks. Saved-for-laters. Tabs left open like monuments to good intentions. The unread queue is a moral position now.
But finishing — finishing! — is its own small art. To read a thing all the way to the end and then to know what you think of it. To close the tab. To put the book back on the shelf with the spine slightly warmer than it was.
That feeling — the warm spine — is worth more than a thousand bookmarks.