This Is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch: The Joy of Loving Something--Anything--Like Your Life Depends On It

by Tabitha Carvan

If I had months to live, I would use that time to love Benedict Cumberbatch. Not all that time, of course, but as much of it as I wanted. I would even keep looking at pictures of him on the internet. Ridiculous, hey? It is not a good use of my time or mind, and it does not matter, and yet, there you have it. How could I ever justify this—wasting my precious time on something so unimportant? I can’t, not according to the criteria we use for deciding such things, anyway. That yardstick only measures stuff like productivity, objectivity, legitimacy, appropriateness. It doesn’t take into consideration, at all, how my love for something as silly as Benedict Cumberbatch makes me feel, and what that’s worth to me. It’s someone else’s value system, one that sees loving something, and especially loving something too much, as a bad thing, a problem, an embarrassment. It’s a system that doesn’t know how to account for all the ways in which other people might make meaning. On this measure, my love for Benedict Cumberbatch is never going to cut it, no matter how hard I try. And I’m tired of trying. If I had months to live, I would want to use that time to do what I love. After all, what could be more worthy of my time and attention than that?