Why I Hate Reading

(At school, have just skipped 282 for my own sanity and to practice. Was going to read the text, but it's at home, so I'm blogging before starting my Orchestration assignment. *blog*)

Every now and then I vehemently think that I *hate* reading. I don't, really. I can do research and read textbooks and blogs and whatnot just fine. I suppose the actual act of reading often gives me a neck/back cramp from leaning over what I'm reading, since I can't seem to get glasses that actually work, and it therefore also causes eye strain, but the debut of the internet (and upright computer monitors) has lessened that significantly. What I *hate* about reading is the thinking.

I can hear my brother laughing at me for that one (yes, you, putz :-p), but thinking too much, especially about one thing, drives me nuts. I tend to disappear beneath the event horizon of whatever it is I'm learning. This doesn't really happen with concrete things like photosynthesis or artithmatic, which are relevant to other things in concrete ways, but rather with abstract concepts that go as deep as people can. Studying those people as legitimate thinkers would probably be considered parapsychology. They come up with anything from epistomological drivel to bad metaphors to fantasy to the most wonderful of ideas. Being self-aware, maintaining a firm grip on reality and the larger context of these ideas is how you keep yourself from going nuts, but there's often a strong pull towards understanding by believing. Like the old idea of thinking like a monster to catch a monster. When I'm reading a textbook, I think monsters are archaic, obsession is archaic. And then I think I need a pet project because I'm bored.