Reading is easier than writing. Kinda like how appreciating a piece of art is easier (and quicker) than reading. Even if artists take just as much time to produce a work as a writer would—and they often do—the human brain is optimized for the visual in its nature. Not a lot of dangers in the wild shaped like letters.
My journey for 1000 Days to an MFA has started off slow, disappointingly so at times.
But I knew this going in. It’s going to take time to develop the routine. It’s also going to take time for the kids to grow up just a little bit more so they aren’t so dependent on me (or the wife) for constant attention.
I’ve found that pulling out an Kindle on the couch and reading to be a much more tolerable, and doable, experience while the kids are in the living room, than slapping a computer on my lap and banging away at the keyboard. Even going back to my analog roots with pen and paper tends to draw them to me like bugs to a light source.
Not that I don’t mind them being interested in writing. This weird thing daddy is doing, where strokes of a pen on paper make funny shapes, like the ones on their wooden blocks, is fascinating, but it’s simply not productive or even mentally helpful. And so reading it is, for now.
