reading & writing.

I read a lot of things. I read science blogs and get awe-struck over the weird minutiae of this world. I read blogs on writing and culture, book reviews, interviews with authors, glimpses into the literary world. I read about food and try to understand it's role in human life and it's role in my own life, how we get it, what we do with it. I read about religion and the place it has in our society. I read short stories, I read poems, I read novels, I read essays.

I do all of this in the name of personal and intellectual growth (and because I like it). I want to feed my own creativity and to participate in the great human conversation.

But sometimes I spend an hour or an afternoon reading and I tell myself that it's part of my writing time. It is certainly part of my writing life (an essential part) but the real, honest fact is that sometimes it's an excuse. It's just another thing, another way that I can put off writing. It makes me think of Natalie Goldberg in Wild Mind. At one point in her life, she found herself sitting down to write and instead gazing out the window, feeling very peaceful and zen. She thought that she was maybe reaching enlightenment. She asked her spiritual mentor about it and he told her, "No, that's just laziness. Get back to work."