Limits and awareness of limits

I live in a small city.  Traffic is not really a problem but I have gotten used to the level of congestion we have.  So, being fourth in line for a traffic light to change means we have built up a bit of a jam.  I understand that my big city correspondents will have a good snicker over such a reaction.  

Whether it is navigating or listening or shopping or other activities, I keep running into limits and awareness of limits.  My patience is limited. My memory is limited.  My time is definitely limited.  We have limited minutes of daylight.  My eyes can stand only so much reading before they reach their limit.  My energy is limited and caffeine can only do so much to increase it.  

My tolerance of ads, intrusions, offers, bargains and money-saving opportunities is limited.  I went to the library to get a book I asked them to borrow from somewhere for me.  You can laugh if you want but the book is about the history of punctuation.  I enjoyed "Space Between Words" telling about the shift from reading aloud to silent reading when spaces were inserted between words.  That eliminated the needtofigureoutwherewordsbeganandwheretheyended.  So, I thought a history of punctuation might be interesting but I don't want to pay $100 for a "might be" or even $50 for a Kindle version of it.  I asked our university librarians to find a copy and borrow it for me.  I had to use the old-fashioned method of transporting myself there and actually carrying the book to my car.  Even today, not everything can be done on line, CyberMonday or not.  

The last few times I have been in the library, I have dutifully reminded myself that I have 200-300 books right here that I haven't read.  I kept that in mind and steered myself right past the shelf of New Books, books, mind you, that professionally trained, alert and experienced librarians selected as worthy additions to the university collection. Not only is there a limit to my patience, but I am also aware that knowledge is steadily changing, expanding, updating, and revising.  So, not too many trips past the new books, please, or else, I won't know about blockchain and food research and better breathing meditations.  I picked up Irvin Yalom's report of his life in psychiatry, Max Tegmark's look at our likely lives when artificial intelligence really gets going and Nathan Sayre's look at ideas and practices that need correction in the handling of our wide open ranges of the US west, plus Adrian Owen's book "Into the Gray Zone" about people in vegetative states and new discoveries about what they can do and sense. Gray Zone got my attention and I am reading it now. The print in the paper book is a bit faint and small and I like the Kindle version much better. Plus I can tweet interesting comments faster and more conveniently.