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Originally Posted by straysweeper  For about the past week, I've been reading a fantasy trilogy, as it numbers near 2000 pages, and enjoyment reading varies different than information reading, I've spent many an hour at this.
I've notice interesting side effects. One, I notice I don't sleep as long, as I'd rather be reading, moving towards the conclusion or what happens next. Also, I feel more conscious than I have in previous weeks when my main source of entertainment was various forms of TV or games. Time still flows as though I'm doing either of those things, but my awareness seems more keen. Also, I feel more centered, most notably when I stand.
In ways this also shows some of my strengths in having an obsession and keeping to a task till its done. Yet, I wonder why I haven't been able to transfer that to other areas of my life. |
Reading encourages you to explore something with your mind. You try to visualize the sights, you try to hear the sounds in your mind. You are probably problem solving as you read. Good fiction leaves you a lot of room to explore.
Good fiction doesn't require that you "color within the lines" of your imagination. Tolkein told us that Gandalf was an old man with a staff," and that "he had a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, a silver scarf over which his long white beard hung down below his waist, and immmense black boots." You get to say if the hat stood straight up like a dunce cap, if it was sky blue or royal blue or torquoise. You get to decide if the grey cloak is old and well worn, a simple cottonesque rag or an elegant velvet. You get to decide if that beard is well trimmed or bushy and wild. You decide how that staff is shaped and what it is made of.
In other areas of life the boundaries are often colored in by other people. At work or school, if someone tells you to complete a project, they expect you to produce what they have in their head, and they get cranky if you get too creative about it.
Its a known fact that use of the brain stimulates the brain. So, reading stimulates your brain and you use it. Work or school doesn't always stimulate it, so it begins to shut down the power to the unused sections.