The Read-Write Balance Agitation
When you read, you don’t want to write. You write and you stop reading. What’s going on?!
I don’t think I am alone in this. I am sure I am not alone in this. This restlessness is painful!
When I start a book, I do not want to stop until I have finished it. Yes, I have my Time Management Formula where I divide my day into parts where reading and writing get a certain amount of time each. I have divided in a manner so as to not mix them together. One at a time. It is supposed to help me cure this agitation, this headache:
Read-only from x to y AM.
Write-only from a to b PM.
Yet, when I start a book I want x and y to extend forever, killing a and b in the process. I want to read on and on: for the whole day, days or weeks. Until the book is finished. Done!
I find it difficult to get into the writing mode while I read.
The same happens when I am in the writing mode.
When I start writing a thing or two, I want a and b to extend forever, killing x and y in the process. I want to write on and on: for the whole day, days or weeks. Until I am exhausted and out of writing energy. Done!
I find it difficult to get into the reading mode while I write.
YET:
I have a Time Management Formula. It is supposed to help me cure this agitation, this restlessness, this headache.
This issue drives me crazy. Take this moment for instance. This moment: when I am writing this article, I am writing as if I will never ever read a book in my life. I am a writer, I don’t read, is what’s buzzing inside my head.
But something similar had happened this morning when I was reading a book:
I love to read, fk writing, was what was buzzing inside my head.
If looked upon as action, as a whole, I may have been successfully reading and writing. But during each process the difficulty, the restlessness, the agitation, the ache is real. It hurts.
I am trying to make friends of reading and writing. I want them to be friends. I want them to understand each other. I want them to understand me. I want them to understand the situation. I want them to understand the human irony.
At times, they do understand. But most of the time they don’t.
Yet in the overall context, I do both. But with pain. The Time Management Formula works. It is like a machine which pushes me to do things. It makes things happen. But it is like a machine. It doesn’t make me feel. It pushes me. It just gets things done. Just like machines.
I wish they (reading and writing) understood each other. I wish I could get up after finishing this and read for the rest of the day. But no! Another writing-idea has popped up. It’s as if I want to throw all the books away and just write for the rest of my life. Yet when I start reading, I don’t want to stop. After I finish something I want to read something else immediately. I want to go on and on…
Yet, the Time Management Formula works: like a clock. Like a machine. I want something organic…
