Writing about not reading..

There were two hours of in between and I picked up a book of poems gifted by a friend of the poet, put that down, then picked up the old second hand copy of Tess of D'Urbervilles and put that down and went looking at the book shelf without really looking.. with mind on other things like when the water would go down in the yard and the cleaning afterwards because the longer the water is stagnant the worse is the cleaning and all the other things which if displaced would give space for being entertained .

Reading requires focus and concentration. I remember in the 1997/1998 elections janjhat when we were home a lot, I read out Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy. Mind was different then for some reason, easier to read then.

People moan and groan about how people are not reading and I wonder if it is that too many people have to seek quick fixes and cannot concentrate for too long because their minds are on other things.. and it does take long to get a fix from a book.


And now with Netflix.. it is easier to watch mindlessly at streaming videos than it is to read a book. Some news articles are easy to read if they are short.

I used to walk with a book to read in lines and when waiting and so and then recently I had the book and could not concentrate on it so left it at home and walked around looking for places to eat in another time of inbetweenedness.

But dipping into a book, piece at a time is not good for some of the books as there are some which require reading in one go.


One of the things I do when I cannot do much else is think about packing the book shelf because holding the books is like some kind of cheap substitute to reading them.

But all kinds of things come in my head, and while I cannot read, I also cannot string words and ideas together to write but it is easier to write when you cannot write than it is to read when you don't feel like reading.

A man asked a long time ago, how can you write things which nobody will read?
I thought of this as I sent the link to the blog to a former loved one who had called to check up and said well it is all here and saves on phone credit. 

But the former loved one does not like to read anything except the approved religious literature.


I do not know if writing and reading are from different parts of the brain and if writing/shouting/screaming/resisting are opposite to just reading/processing/discussing other people's lives.

And so an indicator of mental health and wellness would be when the to-read piles become shorter.