no reading

This week I am doing the "no reading" week of The Artist's Way. In case you don't know about the Artist's Way, it's a 12 week program of recovering creativity, created by artist Julia Cameron. Each week there are readings and exercises and an artist's date. Daily, I write morning pages as prescribed by the program (3 pages longhand before I do anything else). I have been joined by a group of people from my office in a "creative cluster," which is simply a group of people doing the artist's way program together. We meet weekly (or a little less often) to discuss our experiences and share support and encouragement.

I was doing my weekly Artist's Way chapter reading this morning when I got to the part that said that this is the week in which you do no reading. By cutting out novels, newspapers, magazines (and also TV and other time-wasting input-guzzling) you free up your time (and awareness) for other experiences. The chapter predicts an increase in re-organizing and enhancement of the personal environment (closet-cleaning, buying a new throw pillow) followed by time for play. I'm interested to find out how this works for me. I know that I divert myself from being by myself with myself by being busy and by reading. I know I'll miss it, but I know it will be good.

So I will continue blogging, but I won't be reading anybody else's blogs. Please forgive this one-sided behaviour, my blogger friends. It's for a good cause.

I will not watch TV (don't do much of that anyway).

I will not listen to the radio just for the sake of chatter. If there's something good that I want to tune in to to really listen, I'll do that. In the car, CDs will be okay, as long as I choose the CD and don't just listen to what's in the player by default.

I will read email, but will instantly delete anything that is junk-joke or precious platitude stuff, and I won't follow links to articles or websites. Not this week.

Maybe I'll clean a closet or buy a new throw pillow. Maybe I'll skip straight to play. We'll see.

Question: do you ever try something to find out what it will be like?

mompoet - Given the choice, I prefer the thing I have not met before