Friday 15 October 2010

On reading

I'm reading again. Reading a book, that is.

Earlier this year - May, I think - I stopped reading, before I'd finished a book. I was about a hundred pages in, and then lost the will to continue with it.

It wasn't the book itself that put me off reading any further, far from it: what put me off was a sudden dollop of Challenging Stuff in that there real life. It forced my attention onto other matters largely beyond my control and, crucially, I didn't want to associate a book which had such promising and intriguing qualities, with such a challenging time.

So I stopped reading because I felt I had to, and I was in a frame of mind in which (rightly or wrongly) I felt I wouldn't be able to find any refuge in such an activity.

So now, months later, I've started reading again. Not the same book - I'll come back to that, all in good time, it will be read - but one which feels appropriate to now. Which had to be the case, or I wouldn't have started again for a much longer time, I'm sure.

I'm not going to mention the book(s) in question, at least one of which will become the subject of a different post. The point, though, is that something has shifted - I can at least concentrate upon the act of reading again, I may well have finally incorporated or assimilated those aforementioned challenges to some degree.

3 comments:

Zhoen said...

Been there. Times in my life when reading for pleasure was impossible, a facility only regained slowly. I still don't read like I used to.

Caroline said...

"something has shifted" - I am very happy to hear that! I love your continued self-searching and progression x

trousers said...

It's a kind of shutting down, I find, Zhoen - it feels necessary, as though reading is a mere frivolity, which really it isn't as far as I'm concerned. Or, it's that when you're "on guard" against stressful stuff, activities such as reading feel as though they would lower that guard.

Caroline, thank you. It certainly is continued, and continuing. I looked back through my posts around May/June..oof.