20190805.0430

If it is the case that I feel somewhat drained by my writing, I think it is because I am not doing enough reading. Such a statement is a strange one for me to make for several reasons. One of them is that I do spend a fair bit of time reading, even now, even if it is online more than on the page. (Some of it is very much on the page, though, as witness this and following.) Another is that, in my youth, I spent more time with a book in my hands and my nose buried in it than doing anything but breathing. That there could be "enough" reading is something that seems at odds with who I have been and whom I, in what may be my weaker moments, still might like to be. I do not know that doing as much reading as I did for as long as I did made me happy, as such, but there was a pleasure in mastery that I have felt and miss feeling; it has been some time since I felt like I actually had a handle on things.
There's a lot of reading I need to do, in addition to what I've been doing for the re-read project linked above. I should read to Ms. 8 more than I do, share with her the things I love (that she can handle; there are some things for which few five-year-olds can handle) and share in what she loves. (Already, her interests are moving in ways that mine do not; there's overlap, of course, but certainly areas where what we enjoy is not the same. And that's fine; Kelly Turnbull's Commander has the right idea about it, I think.) My wife enjoys having me read aloud for some strange reason, so I ought to do that more; I like reading, I've been accused more than once of loving the sound of my own voice, and I have a vested interest in keeping the Mrs. happy, so it seems a thing to do. And I still need to study more; even with me being largely outside academe, I keep a toe in, and I have let my reading in the few journals I still take lapse long.
I have the time to read more, certainly. Or, rather, I have things I can set aside in favor of reading. Evening television could be swapped out for evening reading, for example; while we tend to talk about what we watch--and not in terms of what happened as much as in terms of what it means that things happened the way they did, what it means that the lighting and positioning and the like are as they are--there is a different engagement with the printed page than with the moving screen, habits of focus and attention and rumination that may be able to be developed in other media but have not been that I have noticed. I do not think I can be held too much to blame for sticking with what has worked for me. I have quiet mornings, too, that I tend to spend staring at screens that I am not sure I enjoy; I could turn pages, instead. I think I would get more out of it.
Getting more, I would be able to give more in turn. I have done my best writing when I have been reading. I am not satisfied with how I've been working of late, so I need to get back to doing what I know will make things better. After I get a bit of rest, perhaps...