Weird News
I'm doing The Artist's Way (by Julia Cameron), which is, for lack of a better term, a self-help book aimed at revitalizing one's creativity. I have never done anything like this before. It is aimed at would-be artists/writers/actors, but I'm not really any of those things. I am doing it because I feel like I have shut down huge parts of who I am - I don't know why, exactly, but it's something I've done, systematically, over the course of years. So I'm reading this book, and doing all the exercises. I wake up an hour early every day and write three pages longhand. There is something about the process of writing longhand that just WORKS for me - my thoughts organize themselves, in a way they still don't on a computer, and they certainly don't if I leave them to their own devices, unexpressed. It's been very trippy, actually. I feel more myself than I have since my early 20s - like the same person I was then, just wiser. I dance to the Beastie Boys while folding laundry, again. I've become politically active, as opposed to just pissed off, for the first time in my adult life. I am exercising (though I started that before I started this program, they seem to complement each other). I am happy. Happier than I have been in years. My marriage is better now than at any point since year one (that's not just this book; Hayes has been doing some massive self-evaluation/improvement, which actually inspired me to try this) - we are both closer now to being the person the other married than at any time since then. I have a much clearer understanding of what I am actually feeling, at any given moment, and WHY I am feeling it. It is astounding, and I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone. It is the best therapy I've ever had, and I've had some very effective therapy.
Anyway, I'm on Week Four (I took 2 weeks each for week 1 and week 2, though, so I've been at this for 6 weeks), during which I am supposed to do "reading deprivation," for "We have a daily quota of media chat that we swallow up... We gobble the words of others rather than digest our own thoughts and feelings, rather than cook up something of our own." That actually describes my relationship to the internet frighteningly well, sad to say. So starting tomorrow I'm going internet-free for a week. Novel-free and all other kinds of elective-reading free as well, though the internet is my tranquilizer of choice.... I'm going to try not to allow the time to get filled with TV too much, either. I'm nervous about it, actually. Anyway, try not to do anything too fascinating while I'm away....
Anyway, I'm on Week Four (I took 2 weeks each for week 1 and week 2, though, so I've been at this for 6 weeks), during which I am supposed to do "reading deprivation," for "We have a daily quota of media chat that we swallow up... We gobble the words of others rather than digest our own thoughts and feelings, rather than cook up something of our own." That actually describes my relationship to the internet frighteningly well, sad to say. So starting tomorrow I'm going internet-free for a week. Novel-free and all other kinds of elective-reading free as well, though the internet is my tranquilizer of choice.... I'm going to try not to allow the time to get filled with TV too much, either. I'm nervous about it, actually. Anyway, try not to do anything too fascinating while I'm away....