A Nighean Ruadh has encouraged me to make time to start reading regularly again.
It came up innocently enough in a conversation: when asked about my reading patterns, I commented on the fact that I had not been taking as much time to read as I had in times past because I was "too busy" (whenever something is in quotes, you know it is going to go badly) with work or something else. I simply had lost the time.
But in responding I suddenly realized that I was depriving myself of a great reservoir of my thinking and energy.
I like to read - not only for the gathering of knowledge but simply as an activity of relaxation. Not only that, but reading is the basis for a great deal of my reading and thinking and learning. I become deeper with the books I read (it depends on the books of course, but I have the area pretty well covered). Given the correct amount of attention and time, they are a wellspring of ideas and inspiration.
And it turns out that I have been depriving myself of this. Oh sure, I try to pack in reading where I can, especially when I have to travel by plane - I suppose I justify it by thinking that it is my alone time and there is little else that I can do. But in point of fact if I am only limiting my intake to my infrequent trips, I am denying myself the full impact of reading.
So that needed to change.
I have made the commitment to read 30 minutes a day. The condition that I have placed upon myself for this is that the books I read cannot be anything which is modern (not cutoff at the moment, but maybe mid-1800s). The hope is that I can begin to reconnect with the great thinkers of the past and confront the great thoughts that have inspired and molded Western Civilization.
The first book? The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. It is a book that I love and is easily accessible and has any number of great lessons in it, lessons about war and peace and making decisions and unintended consequences.
I will start there. But I will certainly not end there.
All it took was someone suggesting that I really did have the time, I just was not using it correctly
I always have a couple of books laying around to read. I have gotten better though my son hasn't found one in the fridge in years but I used to leave em all over. Whenever I have a spare minute I grab one and start reading it.
ReplyDeleteI love reading Preppy, but somehow I always convince myself I have something "more productive" to do. And yes, I am in the bad habit of keeping more than one going at a time. Makes it hard to finish things...
ReplyDeleteI have not read a book in sooo long TB, didn't even realise until reading this post.
ReplyDeleteI have not been nearly as diligent about it, although it is one of my most favorite things to do. What I realized is that I always crowd it out for "more important" things. What I am really doing is cutting myself off both from an activity that gives me pleasure and an important source for thoughts.
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