to read or not to read

i haven't written much in several days now and i feel a bit cranky. probably because writing is one of the things that helps me to know who i am and what i really want at any moment. 

i have been reading a lot for my coursera course on sci-fi and fantasy. our first text is grimm's tales and i am really hating wading through heaps and heaps of them. i began with enthusiasm but soon i just started feeling ill. i wondered why such tales would be crafted? are they really stories we want to tell our children? some of the 'morals' seem disgusting. all sorts of unsavoury characters flourish, trickery is rewarded and the gender bias makes me want to hit someone. luckily my daughter tells me i did not read them to her even in their later, more sanitized forms. 

but right now i still read on - its like a madness. i have to just finish them. why, because i signed up for the course? is that reason enough to go on like this? i have been so busy and still in between things - on buses, waiting in lines - i read them in the hope of finishing them in time - before the next text is up for reading. i no longer enjoy the tales and yet i read on. all my empty spaces, my rejuvenating white spaces, are filled up  by these tales and i feel exhausted.

i am really confused. part of me wants to scream and stop the insane reading. another part of me believes that if i just push and get through and do the work set for the course i might learn something important. i might even be changed from the inside. just push on and i will find a rainbow at the end of ten weeks. 

is it a conflict between long term benefit and instant relief? but it also seems something else that i cannot yet pin down. it's something like intuitively knowing that this course of action is detrimental to me, to my real goals and yet not trusting that knowing. have i have lost touch with what i really want or maybe i am just not listening to my inner sense that is giving me a clear message that this pursuit is meaningless? it's also a tussle between outer expert knowledge and inner experience. i normally favour the latter - am i missing out?

back and forth and back and forth - if i don't read i am missing out... if i read i am not getting on with my own writing... but this might be a chance to deepen my writing... or i might just feel at the end of ten weeks that i wasted yet another few months... 

tied up in knots. unsure of how it will resolve. thoughts welcome :)