Why am I not writing?

I made a promise a few months ago about reducing my reading, and increasing my writing. Big success THAT has been so far! So, while I carry index cards with ideas about the next big things I am going to write about, I thought I'd slip in a small note of explanation. Sort of a "dog ate my blog", if you like.

Look, I've just been busy, OK?!
Let me lay that out up front - I've been busy awfully busy at work. Have been "trying" to transition from an older job to a newer one, with little luck in getting someone to take the old job up! That left me with more job than one man could handle for a long time. Fortunately, that's all history!

Quitting reading isn't all that easy either!
Much as I had committed to minimizing other people's writings, the habit has only got worse. Firstly there's Amazon, then there's the fantastic Alameda County Library, and then there's Google Reader. There's too much good stuff to read out there. Then, of course, there are the podcasts - which take up my driving time! With so much to read and hear, where's the time to ruminate and articulate? (List of books and podcasts below, for those that are curious).

Creative juices flowing elsewhere
I'm starting a new business, so it requires a lot of creative thinking. I've taken massively to ideating in groups, and then converting my amorphous ideas into visual idea-maps. (Check out http://www.digitalroam.com to see someone else's visual thought-work. Mine are similar, but better! ;-) ). This creative ideation has been immensely satisfying, leaving me with little hunger for self-expression through my own blog! Bah!

I tried speaking
OK, so I realized that my usual thinking process doesn't have to begin as my fingers touch the keyboard. (hence the visual work described above). I also realized that many of my great ideas come through conversations. Then, I thought, maybe the ideas come from the subconscious mind and I can bring them into the open by speaking out loud. That led me to speech-to-text softwares. One order from Costco later, I am the not-so-proud owner of the Dragon Naturally Speaking. All I didn't plan for was my Indian accent and my accented speech! Contrary to the company's insistence that this software is 99.5% accurate, in my case the accuracy if wayyyy off! Therefore, my blogs can only come out at 40 words per minute (typing speed, apparently).

Now, I'm ready!
I have so many ideas, so many idea-maps, and so many things to write about. Just do it!

Watch this space...a little longer! ;-)

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Reading and Listening list
Books I'm reading, or have recently read:
Karen Armstrong's The Great Transformation - just started reading, but great author
Robert Sapolsky's Monkeyluv I absolutely loved this book!
Robert Sapolsky's A Primate's Memoir - Absolutely a must-read. Very well written.
Rachel Herz's The Scent of Desire - This is very interesting read, especially with the one below
Sandra and Mathew Blakeslee's The Body Has a Mind of Its' Own - very, very insightful (must write about it sometime)
Dan Roam's The Back of the Napkin - this is great for visual thinking, and I highly recommend this
Nassim Nicholas Taleb's The Black Swan - an interesting rant, and a good (not great) follow up on Fooled by Randomness

Podcasts: ABC Radio National's All in the Mind, WNYC's RadioLab, NPR's Wait Wait (Don't tell me) - all great!

Faster, Master

Faster, Master

Sunday, July 08, 2007

I have come to realize that the quickening pace of life has something to do with the quickening pace of unhappiness. Thoughtless rat-a-tat of action replaces enjoyment completely, just as junk food fills the stomach but provides no nutrition. It’s pretty clear that the speed of life is not linked at all to its quality. Here are two examples of my own experiments with slowing down the pace of life, and increasing happiness. Slow eating, and even slower reading. Easy for me to say, eh!

In praise of slow eating. Perhaps we eat and read faster to avoid being alone with our thoughts. I usually have a newspaper or some other reading article handy to support the time-wasted in eating. However, I have tried slow eating a few times and find it more enjoyable, but I lose quality reading time. Here’s how. Try looking carefully at your food, and enjoy each morsel. Smell the food and the aroma it creates. Feel the texture of the food against your tongue. Sense the food travel down your gullet and into your stomach. Spend some time thinking about how tomorrow this very morsel will become you!

Devour books slowly too. Hear yourself reading. (Avoid eating while reading, since you’re likely to hear yourself slurping and crunching. Especially while eating crispy things). Keep an ear out for your thoughts which, autonomously, critique and absorb the text. Some thoughts read ahead, while other thoughts leave to handle other pending chores. Listen to yourself think. That’s what reading is all about. The enjoyment from reading comes not from the joy of turning pages, but from the dialogue that our thoughts carry out with the author, and with each other.