I’m “slow reading” (actually “slow listening”, on Audible) “The Creative Act by Rick Rubin.
In fact, this is the fourth time I’ve posted one of the ideas I’ve found when dipping into this short book, the first time being over four months ago.
(You can find those prior posts by simply searching “site:tommccallum.com rubin” )
With that, the idea that struck me in my latest “slow listen” was one that happened as I found myself listening without any great focus on a late evening train this week, when a short passage that Rick narrated stopped me and I had to return to it, in fact the first phrase in the passage quoted below.
As you can see, what I am describing is exactly what he speaks of.
The artist actively works to experience life slowly, and then to re-experience the same thing anew.
To read slowly, and to read and read again. I might read a paragraph that inspires a thought, and while my eyes continue moving across the page in the physical act of reading, my mind may still be lost in the previous idea. I’m not taking in information anymore. When I realize this, I return to the last paragraph I can recall and start reading from there again. Sometimes it’s three or four pages back.
Re-reading even a well-understood paragraph or page can be revelatory. New meanings, deeper understandings, inspirations, and nuances arise and come into focus.
Reading, in addition to listening, eating, and most physical activities, can be experienced like driving: we can participate either on autopilot or with focused intention.
So often we sleepwalk through our lives. Consider how different your experience of the world might be if you engaged in every activity with the attention you might give to landing a plane.