The Write Way to Read

I took a speed-reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia...


Says Mr Woody Allen...


But what I find increasingly alarming is the number of people that believe that they would sit down to read "if they had the time". There is no such thing as having time, nor is there any such thing as making time; time exists without us. I think what people mean when they say they don't "have" time or they need to "make" time is that they need to take control of themselves. Stop blaming time! It is doing just fine without you, thank you very much. We do not make time, use time, have time or lose time; time just is, as are we.


This might seem like a pointless rant and one filled with monstrous levels of hypocrisy coming from somebody that has spent his last few years as a "writer" not writing, but I don't blame anyone but myself for that and I am trying to rectify it now so there! :)


So, if you've had a copy of Eliot's Middlemarch of Joyce's Ulysses sitting on your shelf for five years to make yourself feel like an intellectual and you constantly mean to get around to reading it but you always make the excuse that you just don't "have" the time, then, honey, you ain't reading that book. They might be classics and, yes, they're classics for a reason but it is doing nothing more than perpetuating a ludicrous myth to pretend that one day, you will "make the time" to read Ulysses because you just won't. Of course, I am not saying that you should give up on your endeavours. Paint a picture, fly a kite, skip gaily in a naked, jovial prance through hoards of woodland nymphs and elven goddesses with mud-splattered script on your chest that reads "I'm a speedy reader", but, honey, you ain't reading that book.


And this rule, of course, goes for everything. How often do we tell ourselves that we will learn another language or start a business just as soon as we can "make" time. Let go. Enjoy the fruits of time another way and you might just find that time has been more friendly to you than you think. Either that, or you should have made time to read that bloody book! Your call, I guess.


Thank you, reader, and I will see you tomorrow.
Mike.xx