Stuck in a middle seat amidst commuters, I pondered my current situation.  The prognosis is grim as I’m on day 4 of the Artist Way task and not achieving what seemed like an easy enough task.  You see Julia Cameron advises, in her book the “Artist Way”, that reading deprivation is a method used to unblock creativity.   Below is a photo of me and Julia Cameron at the Artist Way class held at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck New York in July.

Each day has been a struggle because I’ve beat myself up each time I catch myself reading.  That hardly seems right.  I’m reminded of the phrase “reading is fundamental” which is what I’ve been taught and so to break that habit has been a ridiculous task.  Even on the train, I find myself reading the headlines in the New York Post of the person sitting next to me.  I know shameful.  Surely, I don’t care about the fact that Marlon Wayans and Wilmer Valderrama are in a bromance but it catches my eye and by reflex, I read the headline.  I do not know how much longer I can take of this deprivation.  I’m likening it to a diet that’s not working.  I cannot imagine my life without reading.  I surely would be missing a lot.  My goal at the mid-point is to accomplish one full day without reading.  I’m really keen to tap into the benefit.  At least I’m writing more.  What do you think?  Could you do it? Deprive yourself of reading for one week.  What would you do with your time without reading?  My job calls for reading emails and other paraphernalia.  I feel like I’d need a weekend to try this out.  I would have to cut myself off my laptop because I would find myself on Twitter or Facebook reading status updates.  Or, worse I would find myself at people.com or another gossip site reading about celebrities.  Perhaps I can just go to the beach and reflect on life and enjoying my own thoughts without influence of the materials that I read.  I think that’s the idea behind the Artist Way task. 

At this point, my lessons are: 

1. Everything is not for everybody but be open to experiences that offer you insights into your likes and dislikes.
2. I enjoy reading, even if I take it for granted.  It’s so engrained into my day that I don’t count it as reading.  I’ll find myself saying I need to read more when the truth of the matter is that I read quite a lot.  Just last year, I had a goal of reading one book per month.  Imagine that!  I was reading all along.
3. Perhaps the key point was not to let reading take over my life where I can’t think about my own ideas.  Interesting!  I think that about soap operas.  I was so impressed for years and I finally had to wean myself off.  Sure I miss Sonny Corinthos but truly if I were honest, I would have realized sooner that Sonny was only an escape from my own life.

Needless to say, the rest of the week proved to be taxing.  I was tempted like a dessert tray with opportunities to read at every turn.  This is one task that I’ll have to revisit and I’m grabbing my book as I write to see if I misunderstood the task and missed some insight that would have made the process easier.  I’d love to hear from you Artist Way alumni about how you progressed with your reading deprivation.  For now, I’m ready to move to week 5 to see what Julia has in store for me.