hence, blogging and reading are about on the same level of personal priority for me. oh yes! i love literature and books and even collects old books! i absolutely adore reading stories to children. i am fanatical about teaching my students to appreciate reading, and language arts, but i'm pretty much a hypocrite.
i encourage my students to read from a variety of genres, when personally, i only enjoy reading biographies, some historical fiction, memoirs, and essays. i can't just read anything. some people do that. they can just sit down and read anything and everything. they are so passionate about reading that they have a hard time putting books down. i am the opposite. i have a very hard time picking books up. i love them (books) so much, but it's just hard for me to dedicate the necessary time needed to participate in the art of reading.
here's a fun scenerio: i'll read the inside flap of a book, or someone will reccommend a book to me... i'll buy it or check it out from the library and then i'll start reading it, get distracted (i.e. another way of politely saying "bored") and then it will be some months or sometimes even years before i pick it up again and actually finish it. this happens all the time!
it is very hard for me to get "into" fictional accounts. i feel more inclined to read about things that have actually happened to real people...maybe i feel more connected to the characters, when i know that they are real. hence, a narrative has to really grab me and literally throw me into the book with it's words, if it wants me to read it. dave eggars is one of the few authors who can do this. neil gaiman is another.
let's continue with my hypocrisy. i preach to my students that they should read every day, but i rarely read every month.
another pitiful scenario: i always tell myself when i go on a trip, "oh, i'm so going to read so many books on this trip and get caught up on my reading!" i pack about 3 to 5 books in my carry-on and genuinely intend to read at least one on the plane ride to my destination and another one on my way back home. then i tell myself that when i have down time while i'm on vacation (people are always talking about this elusive "down time" that they get when they are on vacation... somehow, i guess i'm so busy and nosey and wanting to meet up with so many people, that i have never ever met this "down time" character) that i will sit at a coffee shop, the library, go to the mountains, or the beach and read some of my books.
that never happens!
here is what happens.
- i go to the beach...i play in the water, i listen to music, i admire the scenery, i take a nap, i chat with my friends, i read about 5 pages in my book and then i start the above cycle again. water, music, scenery, nap, chatting....i go home happy and exhausted.
- when i go to the mountains, i hike, i enjoy the scenery, i take meditation/prayer stops (while i'm meditating, i get distracted and remember that i have placed a book in my backpack, get distracted again by some bird or other living creature and that's the last thought that appears concerning the book), i breathe in the fresh air, i go home fulfilled, refreshed, and exhausted.
- i go to a coffee shop, i usually bring my laptop, i end up chatting online, i end up seeing someone i know and talking for 3 hours because i don't know how to shut up, i enjoy entirely too much scenery (i.e. i people watch), i meet someone new, i end up committing to a fabulous event that evening with the new person or people, i get home sometime far past the wee hours of the morning. somehow, i manage to not even think about books when i'm at a coffee shop...
- when i go to the library, i peruse, i look at books, i think "oh, i should read this. it looks very interesting!", i put it down, because i know that all of the above scenerios will happen, i'll be 58 years old before i finish that book, so i might as well not add another book to the thousands that i'm still trying to get caught up on.
so, this is what happens. i have good intentions, i just don't know how to sit still. plus, i am quite the multitasker. if i am sitting down reading a book, or trying to read a book, i immediately start thinking of other things that i could be doing at that exact moment, like, running, laundry, going to the store, meeting up with this person or that, hiking, biking, climbing, cleaning, organizing, paying bills, the list goes on and on... the one thing that i am thankful for in our age of fabulous and wonderfully progressive technology, is the audio cd! i can do so many things while listening to a book and still sort of say that i read it. sure, i didn't read it with my own eyes, but at least i am getting from start to finish. just in an alternative way, right?:)
now, let's analyze my relationship with blogging. it's basically the same. i'm so busy, and blogging is the type of activity that i must be dedicated to and i must "sit down" or at least sit still in order to write in a blog. i was pretty good at writing in my paper journal when i was younger...even up until my mid-20's. i used to write about events that happened to me daily or just vent about random things. i would usually do this in the evening before i went to bed. i am actually still much better at using my paper journals than i will probably ever be at blogging. it's not like i can just cart my laptop around with me everywhere and pop a squat at any given moment and write about some random thought that came into my head or some interesting thing that i just saw. but i do usually have some kind of paper journal on me at all times. this way i CAN just jot down a thought or two really quickly, while i am on the train, or waiting for the bus, or waiting for traffic to clear at an intersection when i'm on my bike or something. again, the adhd randomness and need to be 'moving" and "doing" at all times makes it difficult to rationalize "sitting" and blogging when i could be "doing" so many other things. and i can't do them and blog at the same time. i can't wash dishes and blog, i can't clean and blog, i can't ... well, actually, i guess i COULD do laundry and blog, but then i couldn't do my hair! i can't run and blog, i can't climb and blog, can't hike and blog, can't can't can't can't CAN'T!!!!
...but going to do my best to TRY.:)
random side note for next blog topic: "what the hell is down time?"
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