I used to love reading, especially fiction. I would throw myself into the author's world haphazardly, with complete abandon, surrendering my mind to the author's textured world, allowing him to paint vivid pictures in my head, using my vast imagination as the canvas. I would trust the architect and I would fill in the blanks. Now since I write all that has changed.
I read with a critical eye, examining the screws and headlights so closely now that I can't really appreciate the car. I, like an engineer, relentlessly compare my work to his. To read it sometimes annoys me or saddens me or makes me happy. But the emotional roller coaster of this neurosis by comparison is too much. It no longer allows me to fully appreciate the creation in front of me. Is it insecurity? I don't think so. I think it's comparison, maybe even competition. It's the driving question of why doesn't he do it like me or why don't I do it like him. It's the question of whose method is superior and that constant weighing which saps my joy.
Just like women. When I was in high school and my early years of college I could simply appreciate them. I could appreciate their beauty. I could appreciate the fine shape of her legs (I'm thinking of one in particular now) or her style and the way her aloof manner mesmerized me. I could appreciate the come hither look in her eye or the flip of her hair or her lightly flirtacious manner.
But now I don't trust her. You see, I've started fucking her. I know her far too well. I know that any romantic musings I've had about her were all a product of ignorance. I know she lies. I know she doesn't care about a moral code that she expects me to enforce when it comes to her but she discards when it comes to her sisters. I know that her aloofness and style is really vapid and she is simply waiting for me to screw her so that somehow she has a claim, regardless of what it will be used for. I know that beneath a facade of simplicity lies a calculus that is at best off putting and at worst manipulative.
So in my reading, just as in my women, I look at both of them askance. It's because I just know both of them too well. And knowing something too well makes romance impossible.
I read with a critical eye, examining the screws and headlights so closely now that I can't really appreciate the car. I, like an engineer, relentlessly compare my work to his. To read it sometimes annoys me or saddens me or makes me happy. But the emotional roller coaster of this neurosis by comparison is too much. It no longer allows me to fully appreciate the creation in front of me. Is it insecurity? I don't think so. I think it's comparison, maybe even competition. It's the driving question of why doesn't he do it like me or why don't I do it like him. It's the question of whose method is superior and that constant weighing which saps my joy.
Just like women. When I was in high school and my early years of college I could simply appreciate them. I could appreciate their beauty. I could appreciate the fine shape of her legs (I'm thinking of one in particular now) or her style and the way her aloof manner mesmerized me. I could appreciate the come hither look in her eye or the flip of her hair or her lightly flirtacious manner.
But now I don't trust her. You see, I've started fucking her. I know her far too well. I know that any romantic musings I've had about her were all a product of ignorance. I know she lies. I know she doesn't care about a moral code that she expects me to enforce when it comes to her but she discards when it comes to her sisters. I know that her aloofness and style is really vapid and she is simply waiting for me to screw her so that somehow she has a claim, regardless of what it will be used for. I know that beneath a facade of simplicity lies a calculus that is at best off putting and at worst manipulative.
So in my reading, just as in my women, I look at both of them askance. It's because I just know both of them too well. And knowing something too well makes romance impossible.
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