Reading Is Fundamental

Describe the role of reading in your life.

Ha.  This one's sort of a repeat, from when the journal jar asked me about books.  See here and even here.  Oh-- here, too.

I gotta say, reading has been important.  From the RIF commercials when I was a kid, I learned that it was essential.  Reading is fundamental.  It facilitates so much.  Like, my audience, for example.  It allows for great writing to be processed and shared.

And not so great writing, too.

Reading for me has been spiritual practice.  Not always, of course.  Like when I read the paperback version of The Billion Dollar Hobo, for instance.  But reading is transcendental.  It takes you places-- at speeds unknown in the "real" world.  You can transport yourself to another universe by reading.  You can travel back (or forth) in time.  Reading is learning, is stretching of the intellect.

As opposed to drinking, which can transport you to another reality, yes, but at the cost of a severe headache and hangover.

That's why writing is so important.  Writing what is on your mind and really feeling it, really getting down with what you're thinking and what you feel can be so important.  Communicating with others, now and in the future, your writing can do that.  Writing something down puts it out there for the potential of another's experience.  Be they sibling, spouse, or space-alien.

Recently, I took a walk back in time by digging out one of my old journals and reading through it.  Nearly twenty years had passed since I had cracked the binding on this particular journal.  I ended up reading the entire thing in a couple hours.  But even more interesting-- when I dug out the journal, I found a letter that I had written to one of my friends.  It had to be about 15 years old.  I had written it and sealed it up, not knowing if it would ever be delivered to him or not.  I had lost touch with him and didn't know if I'd ever reconnect with him.  Just recently, we re-established contact, and he visited the area and we met for drinks and caught up.  So when I found the letter, I was excited to share it with him.  I sent it to him with a note about how I didn't even know what I had written, but how it had come about and about how old the letter was.  I told him that I would love to hear from him about what I said, after he received and read the letter.

Of course, I haven't heard anything.  But it's only been a couple weeks.  Just another reason for him to get back in touch with me, right?

Reading can heal you, can make you a better person.  It is powerfully transformative.  Use it with respect.  As one does with writing, as well.

Activities Enjoyed By Young and Old

How about we has us some Journal Jar about now?

What activities do you enjoy doing today that you also enjoyed as a child?  Describe them.

Well, I enjoy writing, we know that.  And I really enjoyed writing a story in the fourth grade about riding a BMX bike with my friend.  I'll have to put that up, if I can find it.  I'm sure I still have it somewhere.  Along with an illustration.

I really enjoy naps, although I don't think I enjoyed them as much when I was a child.  I very much enjoy eating, as my belly extolls.  But I don't know that I really enjoyed eating as much when I was a child as I do now.  Now it's a sporting event.  Now I eat for pleasure, not just for necessity.

But anyway.  What else...  I always enjoyed drawing when I was a kid.  Got pretty good at it.  And I still like to doodle now and then.  Sometimes I break out the pastels or the magic markers and let it all rip loose.  But not very often anymore.  There was a period, back in the early 1990's, where I made a habit of drawing in most of my free time.  And it produced a lot of interesting stuff, much of what I've displayed on this site.  In fact, most of my favorite works are from that time.  I had a makeshift easel set up next to my bed, with an adjustable desklamp for instant lighting.  The pastels and other assorted markers were right there too.  I could spend time laying on my bed and staring into whatever I was working on, get perspective, work out ideas in my head before attempting them on the paper.  It was a productive time for me and my art.

I was also writing quite a bit back then.  I was limited in that I was a slow typist, but I made time to try and write.  A lot of Thistle Penn was developed during that time, although he was and remains an enigma, a conundrum.  The mystery is what was so much fun to explore. 

Curiosity.  I've always enjoyed that.  That's part of what made me a reader of books as a child and continues to get me turning pages, or writing them.  Is curiosity really an activity?  I believe it is.  It can be.  After all, what killed the cat?

Other activities... I mentioned reading.  It's something that I really do enjoy and have written about before.  But since having to deal with my bipolar illness, reading has become more difficult.  If I'm struggling, for example, with a medication change or adjustment, reading can be near impossible.  I'm really happy that right now I'm in a place where reading is again enjoyable and that I get a lot out of it.  For a while there, I'd try to read and have little recollection or comprehension.  But that may have been the drug side effects or the illness or both.  I'm celebrating being able to read by using my local library more, going through my personal library, and trading books with friends.  The last few months I've read more books than I have in years.  It's a wonderful thing.

Kind of funny that I enjoyed math so much when I was a kid and now I don't even balance my checkbook.  I was really good at math, too.  But I just got away from it.  I chose to do other things-- me and math kind of had a falling out by the end of high school.  I got burned out with it, lost interest.  The "deeper" math of calculus and trigonometry kinda killed my interest.  I lost my curiosity for finding the answer to math problems, and turned instead toward finding "truth" or answers like it.  That's what I began to grope for-- something spiritual.  Art and writing and reading seemed more appropriate endeavors toward spiritual practice than math did, so I set to doing them instead.  But I realize now the value of mathematics, and the ability for it to address spirituality.  Someday I hope to read the book I got for Christmas many years ago, The Physics of Immortality, which purports to mathematically prove the existence of God.  All in due time.

Not sure I could even locate that book in my personal library right now...  But who has to now, in the age of the internet?  Just look up the reviews...  There are plenty.  But I think I should read it for myself (if I can...) and make up my own mind.  Slow process, but that is how things work.

So.  Another activity that I've done all my life: Thinking.  I do so enjoy it.  Most of the time.  But I do so much of it sometimes that it just gets in the way.  It's addictive.  So you have to do "thinking fasts" now and then, where you rid yourself of thinking for a spell.  Keeps one healthy.  There's an art to it.

Alrightythen.  Lunch time.  You know what that means!  Gotta run!