will be rewarded for our reading deprivation with
embarrassing speed. Our reward will be a new outflow. Our
own art, our own thoughts and feelings, will begin to nudge
aside the sludge of blockage, to loosen it and move it
upward and outward until once again our well is running
freely.
Reading deprivation is a very powerful tool—and a very
frightening one. Even thinking about it can bring up
enormous rage. For most blocked creatives, reading is an
addiction. We gobble the words of others rather than digest
our own thoughts and feelings, rather than cook up
something of our own.
In my teaching, the week that I assign reading deprivation
is always a tough one. I go to the podium knowing that I
will be the enemy. I break the news that we won’t be
reading and then I brace myself for the waves of antagonism
and sarcasm that follow.
We are always doing something, talking, reading,
listening to the radio, planning what next. The mind is
kept naggingly busy on some easy, unimportant
external thing all day.
BRENDA UELANDIn a dark time, the eye begins to see.
THEODORE ROETHKE