Some Thoughts on Reading Deprivation

I recently finished a week-long reading deprivation exercise, courtesy of The Artist’s Way. 

Last week, I had to ban myself from reading, but also from things and activities that I used to unwind after a busy day at work: which really meant, no scrolling social media, no video games, and yes, even avoiding Youtube and Twitch (I’m not much of a Netflix or TV person, so that was not part of the ban). When I first read about the idea, I was flabbergasted - what EXACTLY was I going to do with my time? How was I going to learn about what was happening around me? How could I talk about the latest celebrity gossip with people if I didn’t know what was going on?

Well, as it turns out, this wasn’t really a problem. As Julia Cameron states in the book, reading often serves as a distraction to artists. And it was true - I’ve used reading to tune out the world, to avoid pursuing things that I really wanted to do in the name of “relaxing”, or to enlighten myself in the name of "self improvement". While I couldn’t remove all distractions completely, I found that depriving myself of my usual after-work activities left room for doing other things. I finally started free-writing! I hung out with friends! I got to enjoy lunch with my parents! I wouldn’t say many of these things were productive, but that was not the point of the exercise. The point was to create space for you to pursue activities or do things you normally wouldn’t do.

I’m still trying to get used to the idea of play, and expanding what that idea is - for me, play was always about physically creating something, an existing idea, and seeing where it goes. My problem with this is that I have never thought of myself as a person with ideas. Participating in the reading deprivation exercise (along with the other exercises in the book) showed me that you don’t necessarily need ideas to play. Just a bit of attention.

Which is really, the whole point of being an artist.