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Have a little conversation going from the comments on Sanctuary… A fancy word for hideout? I’m just wondering if anyone else would care to add their 2¢ worth to the discussion. Would love to hear about other folks’ experiences.
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Safar: I sometimes look back on my time with the kids and wonder how much I was trying to find sanctuary from them, rather than with them. So can relate to your last sentiment. Something we did enjoy was reading together and now I find sanctuary in a good fantasy book. A hideout from the harsh realities of life to some magical place? My other sanctuary is the garden and observing the insects and birds within it. Strangely, I don’t feel that I’ve lost my sanctuary when others are with me in it. It is like shared sanctuary. Hope I can provide that in the future.
Calen: You know, I used to be able to find my sanctuary (at least a great deal of it) in books. Lately I can’t even work up the enthusiasm to read. I’m trying to read an OLD favorite at the moment that I’ve loved forever and read a dozen or more time. My attention span is just shot. I’m wondering if it’s from blogging so much.
Linda: I’m finding I can’t keep my attention in my book either….I used to read 3-4 books a month…..but the last few years it’s dwindled.
Safar: That’s possible. Media saturation could be part of the plight. I didn’t read for a long time either. I was surprised how long it took me to get back into it since leaving my job. Wonder why?
Calen: That kind of makes sense what you said about media saturation. Maybe reading is like any other commodity. When books were a bit scarcer, had to go to a bookstore to get them (for example), words were at a premium in my mind. Now there are books everywhere you turn, even on the computer. And not all of them good! But the market has been glutted, and as with any other thing you can buy, once there’s too many or too much of something the price drops. Maybe it works the same way. Maybe we begin to devalue the written word? Maybe we can only take it in short pieces now.
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What about you? Do you have an opinion? Can you blog and chew gum read at the same time?
Impromptu Promptlings 
Now that I blog, I read more now than I have in years. I just can’t read paper books. My mind works faster, my ADHD is in hyperdrive, so I read e-books. I still have the satisfaction of getting lost in a story, but without cluttering up my already packed bookshelves.
I simply do not have or take the time to physically pick out a book, read it, then return it to a library. I have Kindle Unlimited, so I can virtually do that during unconventional hours after it gets quiet in this crazyhouse.
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You’re the first person I can say I get how e-books are beneficial for you. With everything you’ve got on your plate you sure don’t need a stack of books three feet high on your nightstand. That would probably be the stuff of nightmares! I’m glad you’re reading. Maybe it gives you a bit of a break. {{{E}}}
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Stacks of books reminds me of high school and college (I worked in a library there.) I used to feel safe in libraries. A comfortable place to hide from my parents and my brothers. I miss the smell of library books (weird, but true.)
Now, I hide at night and early in the morning with my Kindle.
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You sure can’t duplicate that SMELL with a Kindle, can ya…
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Very interesting. I had not thought of this before. When I am regularly blogging I don’t read as much. When I read a lot, I’m in my head more and not thinking about writing or the blog. It’s either or for me I guess. How can we change this?!
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I wonder if there’s just a certain quota of words we need to survive… I sure don’t know how to change it. I just know it appears I can’t do both at the same time.
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Right now, blogging has actually gotten me to read more, and to finish more books. I’ve been reviewing them on my blog as something to write about. It does make me a more self-conscious reader, though, and I don’t always like that. Instead of just immersing myself, I’m always thinking, “how will I write about this?” or “how many stars will I give this?”
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I know exactly what you mean. I read “How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines” and it almost turned me off to reading. Took all the fun out of it. I’d hate to review books for a living!
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I’m wondering if blogging is teaching me to have a short attention span. Like watching Sesame Street as opposed to Mr. Rogers. What I read on here is, for the most part, short, fast pieces. Then I leave short, fast comments. Is that shaping the way I read?
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“I’m wondering if blogging is teaching me to have a short attention span…Is that shaping the way I read?”
I think, yes, our minds adapt to the things we practice daily. Reading in short bursts is a symptom of our world and the overstimulation of multiple images on tv with subtitles running at the bottom of the screen, while sports scores scroll underneath.
I can’t actually watch tv, because of the visual chaos, but culturally we are changing.
One of my favorite writers is living on a homestead, but she publishes her books electronically and takes to the time to blog.
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Sanctuary….I love the word. I find peace and safety in the word itself. Your writing intrigues me. 🙂 . My 2 cents…we deserve sanctuary. If its not a room it should be a desire to create the time for sanctuary. I am in the middle of where you are. My affirmations are posted without shame or expectations of anyone receiving them or not. I have been single, seems like forever and as my children are getting older and not needing me I am learning to enjoy, want my alone time. Mornings are my sanctuary, exercising is my sanctuary, writing is my sanctuary as well as reading. Sitting on my patio w/ a good book, candles and wine are a sanctuary for me. At times sanctuary becomes quite lonely but in all my experiences it is the most healing time of all. Great blog! Thanks for making me reflect.
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I envy you your mornings. There is one day a week when I have the house to myself. Our adult son lives with us and he’s chatty, to put it mildly. He loves to talk. I’m talked out and need that silence and I don’t get enough of it. To be able to sit and read with wine and candles would be so wonderful. There’s just no where to do it. That’s what makes me the most frustrated. I need that me time. It doesn’t get lonely for me. If I get lonely I call one of the girls and say let’s go do something. But there is a difference, isn’t there… I used to think getting out with them was enough, but it’s not. That alone time is so important. I really appreciated your comment, hon. I think it helped me clarify that a little.
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You are welcome. I like when I am able to share. 🙂
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❤
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I used to read everything, classics, philosophy, psychology, theology, fantasy, how to, etc. I would get lost in the ideas and feel larger, enlightened, or whatever it was. It would scratch the itch for a while till it returned and I would seek out more “knowledge.” I think for me things changed over the last decade or so to the point that ideas or words in themselves no longer have the same power as they once did. Reading had the same basic effect on me as watching tv or a movie. It distracted and even taught me about things but I think that was the issue. It was “about” life but not life itself. I was living in an intellectual and academic world of ideas, disconnected from the “Real.” For me any way the fantasy, adventure, even the esoteric world was a substitute for manifesting those principles, forms, or ideas into my existence. I think the fairytale seems to end when one wakes up or the click strikes because I confused waking and sleeping. Could it be that actually I was asleep when I thought I was awake. I know personally that I have spent much of my existence in the fantasy land of ideas. Acting as though they were actual objects. In the second half of life I have been forced to conclude and begin to cime to terms with how little I actually Know of myself and reality.
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Reading had the same basic effect on me as watching tv or a movie. It distracted… Do you ever wonder how many of us actually WANT to use those things as distractions because we’re AFRAID to immerse ourselves in life? We feel safer on the outside looking in? Of course, as you said, maybe we don’t even realize we’re asleep. (Like in The Matrix.)
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Well, I’m kinder about that now. I don’t think it is cowardice. We have received little to no instruction even from institutions we assumed were teaching deeper things. Our world is run on anxiety and its expectation is that we comply. I think many including you sought answers more than distraction. Even now you seek outside the norm. That is the greatest adverture and one we won’t wake up from.
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Our world is run on anxiety and its expectation is that we comply. I sure think you’re right about that. Question is, how do we counteract that?
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For me there is still nothing like curling up with a good old fashioned book that you can hold in your hand and turn the pages. I do find though that I go through phases. SOmetimes I devour books at a rapid rate of knots, then none at all till next time.
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You know I was so caught up in WWII stuff and was just, like you said, devouring it, and I thought, this can’t be good for me. So I tried to change genres. That was a mistake. It was like I ran into a brick wall. I think it’s still affecting me.
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I do that – devour genres. My latest was something I never thought I would read and enjoy. I read the whole 16 books of the Sookie Stackhouse vampire books. And thoroughly enjoyed them.
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For me it is a question of time. I am so busy writing, doing the blog and fitting in the rest of life that I don’t have the time to read that I would like. I love reading. But I do think we are saturated with words and ideas. There’s a wealth of good writers now.
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I think saturated is a good way to put it. Where there are so many words out there they lose their ability sometimes to permeate our minds. It’s a watershed type reaction maybe?
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Yes, words are everywhere, but I think many of us are learning to be selective when we decide to read stuff. To me it’s not just the topic but also the quality of the writing that decides if I’m going to read more than a couple of sentences. And yet, blogging has changed by reading habits because I’ve discovered a lot of books I wouldn’t have known about, several of which are indie published.
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I’ve noticed that, too, that there are so many books I’m reading reviews for that I think sound interesting, but there’s just not enough time. I maybe should make it a point to get off the computer and just read. Like you, I’m terribly selective when I choose what to read. Thanks for commenting, Mira. It’s great hearing other folks’ experiences.
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