Obsessions

I am obsessed with reading. I cannot sit still without reading. If I don’t have any books with me, I read posters, packaging labels, anything. Even when I watch films, I need subtitles; without this “crutch”, they seem incomplete to me (as if I need confirmation that what I heard corresponds to what was said, and I only feel at ease after reading what I heard).

I always carry a book with me. Actually, I used to, when there were only paper books. Now, with my mobile phone and tablet, I carry a library.

Some time ago, another obsession arose: writing. I used to think about writing; I dreamed up narratives, dialogues, everything flowed like a film, without the need to put it down on paper. Today, I feel a growing compulsion to write, neatly, on a white sheet of paper scratched by the softness of a 2B pencil or the tip of a permanent ink pen. The keyboard is harder, more resistant to impulse, but less satisfying. In between, as a substitute for the analogue tool, more human, I use a stylus pen for my tablets (better, for me, the Samsung one than the Microsoft one, as it is more “analogue”).

The compromise with the digital pen is that it doesn’t require transcription into digital format. Although OCR already does this from a photograph or scanned image, I am neither familiar with nor comfortable with the procedure (old man’s stuff).

So, whenever I have time and the prompt seduces me, I write, without great pretensions, but with the desire to discover where the text I begin ends, as I rarely know the outcome before I start writing.