Reflections on a week of Reading Deprivation

I am working my way (very slowly) through The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron – I will do a glowing post about this when I eventually reach the conclusion (but just know this is the most impactful and influential book I have ever read. I cant tell you the differences it has been making in my life). And today I wanted to reflect on the impact one specific task has had on my life and my art.

So, as the new year rolled over I reached chapter 4, in which the first task is …dum, dum, dum…reading deprivation.

As the name would suggest that means no reading, whatsoever, for a whole week.

Cameron says:

For most artists, words are like tiny tranquillisers. Like greasy food, it clogs our system. Too much of it and we feel, yes, fried.

for blocked creatives, reading is an addiction.

Resistance

My first though was Oh My God, No – I scribbled it in the margins of my copy.

This, Cameron says, is a pretty typical reaction, which she attributes to fear.

And you know what? She was 100% right.

I didn’t want to do it. I panicked thinking about what I would fill my time with. But Cameron points out that it’s a great opportunity. It’s time you can fill with other tasks, the things you keep putting off, the crafty projects you never get around to. You don’t have to sit and do nothing, she assures the reader (although that kind of is the point).

And slowly the thought grew on me. You wanted to get more crafty stuff done, I reminded myself, here is your opportunity. Within a few days I was feeling excited about the idea. I wanted the challenge. I wanted to see if I could do it, and what I would find and do because of it.

It wasn’t just me either. I told a friend, an ex-artschool student, who is now very much NOT AN ARTIST, what I was planning. Her horror and derision were palpable.

“Wont you get bored?” She asked, incredulous.
“Maybe, but the idea is to work through the boredom to what is on the other side.” I pointed out. It seemed very reasonable to me. She didn’t look convinced.

The conversation reminded me of how often you can go out into nature – walking up Lions Head in Cape Town for example – and find people blaring music on their phones. That they cant be without input for more than a few mins without getting antsy.

And I wondered just how universally true Cameron’s idea might be.

Pollutants

The first thing I did was put in a bit of structure, unintentionally finding the point of the whole exercise I think.

Cameron goes so far as to suggest no reading of any kind, even for work.

Well, for me, that was a step too far. I had committed to making that week my first back at work, and I didn’t want to renege on that. Further, there were deadlines I couldn’t afford to miss.

So, I decided, I will work and I will read for work, but we are going to do this mindfully.

To be always asking, do I need to be reading this? And that turned into, do I need to be doing this? Like this? Why am I doing this, is this the best way to be doing this? What is my plan here?

Because of this exercise (and some other things) I spent much of my first week re-examining my Plan of Action and my goals. Instead of simply running along in the grove I wore for myself through last year, I started my year by asking where do I want to go?

All that from making space to think.

The other thing Cameron warns about is the need to

keep a watchful eye on these other pollutants

Because the problem isn’t books or reading, its consumption. And there is no bigger pollutant to our attention than social media.

Now, lets be honest here. I consider myself an intelligentsia, not susceptible to the lures of social media. I don’t use it that much, its not important in my life. I can quit whenever I like.

And you know what? I was fucking lying to myself, ‘cos I struggled with this.

It is such an ingrained habit, that it took most of the week to break. Reaching for my phone in the little moments, to fill up the odd-time gaps. Whether it was Pinterest or Insta, or Youtube. Actually one of the hardest spaces was while eating. I had gotten into a habit, that had become a crutch, to watch a video while eating. And I saw many interesting little documentaries or political discussions, I’m not saying that what I was watching was valueless. But, eating would become cleaning dishes, would become x and y and z. Instead of the video filling down time, I was creating down time to fill the video.

Social media had to go.

How did it go?

I’m not going to lie. The first few days were difficult.

But I got so much done. The evenings are long when you are not hiding in a book. And with all this free time came the question, what do I want to do tonight? I reconnected with my crafty projects. I started new ones. Which inspired ideas for even more new ones.

I want to thank Cameron for giving me back my crafty self – I never thought I would see that side of myself again.

It made me think about how I want fill my time, do I want music while I’m stitching, crocheting, journalling, do I need it? And the answer quickly became no.

I struggled with the absence of actual books. By day 3 I was eyeing my bookshelf longingly. With a hunger for new stories I hadn’t felt in a long time. I wasn’t falling unthinkingly into the next one, I was considering, deciding, nurturing an appetite for it.

It was in those moments, at the end of the day when your body and hands and eyes were too tired to keep busy, when I just had to sit still with my thoughts, that were the hardest. I need the physical focus of a task.

But I persevered and found a goodness in that too.

Without the distraction of a book I could listen to my body. No more one more page, I was listening when it said, babe its time for bed.

Mornings were hard, no more scrolling awake. Now Morning Pages really was the first step of the day.

Achievement Unlocked

Cameron talks about this exercise leading to play. I’m not sure it worked quite that way for me, but maybe it did, maybe I was venting that energy into crafty stuff, or maybe that will come in the future.

It made me more aware and mindful of how and why I consume social media. And I’m lucky I can regulate my social media use simply by being mindful. I have a lot of friends who can only do so by uninstalling the app (every week) or switching their phones off.

The constant need to be vigilant about reading also kept me focussed and present in the moment.

It was also a lot easier to find time to write when there wasn’t another handy excuse waiting to be picked up.

The biggest thing I got out of this was the realisation of stillness.

I never got bored.

First there is a mad hum like bees, and then slowly important ideas and thoughts start spinning out of the centrifuge of your brain.

I journalled (deep dive style) 3 times in one week. Without the noise I was actually thinking, reflecting, deciding. Not just running along old tracks. There isn’t boredom, there is stillness and that is its own reward, like putting on glasses you didn’t know you needed. Because being still becomes being focussed.

This week opened my eyes and my mind.

But I will admit its not sustainable.

I do want and need some input. But now I have a better sense of what I can live without. I want to try maintain this mindfulness when I work. Look out for those times and places where I use reading as a kind of displacement activity. Do I really need to follow all these news reports? Read each and every one to the end?

Do I need to check social media on the bog, after every email, every time I change rooms? I know now I can check in with myself, do I want to watch a video at lunch today? Is there genuinely anything I feel like watching?

I want to hold time for stillness in my daily life, and see what flows out from there.

I want to hold that space for crafting. And I want to end off my day reading. But giving myself space to stop and hold and think.

I don’t know how well I will do with any of this, so wish me luck.

PS: It’s funny how the brain works. A few months after first penning this article, I came back to it for editing. As I read back over what I had said here I came to realise that I had lost my stillness, my mindfulness, everything I had resolved to do. And in that realisation I saw what a slump I had fallen into emotionally, telling myself I was fine, hamster-wheeling through life, and hiding in books, and media and non-sense.

Reading this was a remind of what I had lost and encouragement to go back to it.

It was a light shining the way out of darkness.