Squirrel

For those who have seen the movie, "Up", the Squirrel! scenes perfectly embody the distractibility of the ADHD mind.  These days, without the over-arching goal of the music festival that guided my life in the first part of the year, I find myself torn in a thousand directions, none of them particularly satisfying.  

One direction though that has been satisfying is making a conscious choice to read more books again.  I say again because before I purchased a laptop and then a smartphone, which can be carried to bed, I used to read book after book in my late twenties and well into my thirties.  Not that the number is the important part in the equation but I do remark that I don't read the way I used to.  For me it's important to read something in book form or at least on a device that isn't connected to into the internet.  After a few moments away from my device and into my book, I find that my mind calms and I am carried away in the way that any reader hopes for.  Our (as in human beings) relationship with the internet is a lifelong struggle (First World problem I know but there it is).  We have to make conscious decisions whether or not we want to take vacations like these.  For those with an already compromised attention span, the internet can be terribly addictive drug. 

Last night I finished the book, Elegy for Iris, a beautiful memoir of 40 year + marriage of two English intellecuals.  In that book I took trips to Wales, Italy, England, amongst other countries and I went swimming in ponds, rivers and oceans. Even better, I found a truly lovely solitude that the internet doesn't offer to me. 

In my experience the difference between reading on the internet and reading a book is night and day.  The former, while fun, addictive and very often informative (but often full of junk info too) stresses my mind.  The latter calms my mind and brings into focus an experience that is all mine for the enjoying.