Jan 22, 2013

I'm a reader...like most


I'm a reader...like most, of hearts and minds within many mediums. Faces; love a slight second of a nuance caught in an act of love, defiance, fear...whatever purity that cannot be suppressed.  Must be expressed.

                                                               I try to pay attention.
I have read a bunch of books, articles, plays, & prose.  Not all classics, but in a good gamut. So pleased to be pretty secure in knowing we probably won't run out of material to read.
I can get emotionally attached to word placement and an artists' perception.  The influence is not a shocker.
Are my ideas shaped by other's opinions? In a way, I guess because I'm pretty open-minded, you know, just in case.  I wouldn't say wishy-washy. I do try to remember it's alright to say, I don't know, I was wrong, or ask for an explanation.
But certainly,
the facts and truth I try to decipher,
clearly coincide with concrete feelings
I get to explore within myself.
Plus, if I let it, it can be an awful lot of fun
When I choose to read or listen, a beautiful relationship is forced upon me.  One that I wouldn't have pursued with humans, in person, as a start.  In that respect, I'm much less confident.  This relation side- swipes me into feelings, ideas, plans, actions...good, bad, just right.  Indifference is not so much there.  It's the perfect "ice-breaker" into an overwhelming desire for me to engage with all sorts of people.  It gives me courage and faith. It brings balance with my stubborn relative logistics in line to straighten out my erratic passions. I depend on it now since vodka and whiskey stopped doing it for me.  It resolves the lie of lonliness.
I have a friend who used to ask me why I got
"so tangled up in reading?
I can't sit still enough to read a book like that.
Why don't you just put the book down,
stop reading the paper,
get off the twitter for a moment."
I think he was more stressed about my emotions projected onto him. Fearful to experience what he saw as some kind of odd or quirky consequence of completeness that comes with knowledge.
Not cocky. Not frightful. Somehow, a very satisfying internal sense of purpose is established by learning.
I mean really being part of constant learning.  "The more I learn, the less I know" is not a conundrum.
It's freedom.
It is a weird concept that may not work for everyone, but it does that for me. There seems to come a responsibility to do something with it, and wisdom is hard to gauge.  And if you have to gauge, it can be quite awkward to place.
For my friend's birthday I bought him a 50 or so page illustrated book of C Bukowski's poems.
He's now a sponge for current events like a junky.  He purports if there were a Chomsky card, he would carry it. What Bukowski "said" to him is not what it's about.  It's how the words were "spoken".
My friend doesn't spend his time gauging...too busy reading and learning, listening and sharing.
It keeps me focused too.
The English language will fascinate me.
Some words disgust me.
Some words kinda creep me out.
There are a couple of words and phrases, when used in just the right way, for me, bring me a feeling of such joy and hope.  A pleasure that sends me to a point that seems as if I could well up and float away on my happy little wake of tears.
Sometimes it comes from reading to myself, thoughts jogging in my imagination.
I do love to read out loud.
It's not the voice of mine I hear, it's another's voice coming from me, when in that brief moment, I connect...I understand...maybe even agree.  Whatever the case, it creates a humanity binding to me.
Oh boy, and if I'm reading to someone, something amazing happens. It can be chapters in a novel, a joke, a tragedy, the latest NBA scores, but sharing and seeing someone react to what's being read to them is an alluring way to get to know someone. In the moment, no preparations except, somethings going to change.  We become vulnerable and authentic. An unbeatable power of comfort overtakes distrust and fear. I know for me, I can be trapped in the moment of discovery, into being a most hopelessly unhinged authentic me.  


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