*This essay is the first in a series that will document weekly articles read in support of my pursuit toward mastery in the field of interactive media and communication.

I have often marveled at how some ideas and concepts, whether basic and even obvious or truly genius, just seemed to roll off the minds of those I admire or who are either leaders in my industry or leaders at the company for which I work. They make it look easy. And while I have always considered myself "a reader," (think: Twilight Zone with Burgess Meredith) I have always lamented that I struggled to make some concepts "stick." During my college years (the first time (pre-children)), though I loved to read, reading to learn was torture. I was far better at listening and engaging an instructor to grasp the concepts, than to drag myself through textbooks. Then I joined a bible study and I saw that people actually WROTE in their bibles! You can do that?! And the ground will not open up and swallow me whole? So I took pen to book and began reading. It really did make a difference. Most of the time I didn't fall asleep but instead found revelation upon revelation, truths about myself, the world and the world beyond. Best yet, those notes became nuggets that I could return to time and again. I began to see as the Author saw, and marveled at how consistently and thoroughly the story of salvation wove through not just the Bible as a book, but through the hands and eyes of dozens of human scribes passing the baton through time to me. Like NyQuil makes me one with the bed, so the simple act of making notes and drawings in my bible was doing the same, and I was learning.

Active reading creates a special relationship between the author and the reader.

Of course we all have been sold on highlighters. Back in the day, there was only yellow. Now, they are available in several colors and tip sizes. But taking notes is very different. This is called Marginalia. It sounds like an incurable disease, though you won't regret catching it. Austin Kleon, in his very recent blog post, Reading with a Pencil, encourages his readers to keep that pencil flowing as they read, and provides many visual examples of several famous writers' marginalia. Marginalia is simply the practice of writing in the margins, and by doing so, taking full ownership of the book. In this act too, you begin to a form of collaboration with the author, jotting down questions, arguing a point, or "the next best thing to punching an author in the face." Maybe not with my bible.

Writing in the margins is, though a start, not enough if we are to actually remember what we read. As a passive reader, I could read and read, but very quickly forget it all. This is especially true when reading on the internet. Unless you print an article out, there are no margins to make little notes or comments. It starts to become a chore like homework. But all good things require extra effort. I need to step it up and become an active reader with everything I read - have a deliberate strategy. If it is worth reading that is. Shane Parrish, in his detailed article, How to Remember What You Read, makes the valid point that one needs to choose their books and reading material wisely. Figure out what topic you want to read and why. Then put some context around the literature so you can really begin to find where the author was at mentally, physically, socially, economically, politically or even spiritually. My particular bible does a nice job of providing some elementary context before each book. It even provides a timeline as to when it was written. This means that one needs to start caring about what they read. He also reminds us that its perfectly fine to stop reading when you are bored or the content is just not what you had hoped for.

Parrish, in his strategy, then recommends getting that notebook and/or index cards out with the pen. Activate your reading by constantly analyzing what is being communicated, ask questions, and develop mental models that can become a means of really remembering the ideas being conveyed. He recommends noting your own and the authors biases, possible stereotypes, and motivations. Lastly, once you have completed your reading, a great way to know you have consumed it thoroughly is to teach it to others. This forces the reader to simplify and clarify key concepts and boil it down to its essence.

One very important idea that must not be overlooked when attempting this mind meld is the power that distractions have over our ability to focus, and stay focused. Parrish looks to Nicolas Carr's work, The Shallows, to emphasize how vitally important it is to find a quiet space for prolonged, uninterrupted reading time, where a person can think deeply as they read deeply, making their own associations, analogies and hatch inspiration.

Distraction is all around us. I know, I have four adult children still living at home. They are neither quiet nor out of the house nearly as much as I would prefer. In fact, I'm pretty sure anyone walking a dog past our house can hear me yelling shut up! more than occasionally. One of the twins just does not stop singing, all day, all night, and almost always about whatever she is doing at that moment. She makes up tunes as she goes along. After a while, its not cute, it annoying. But there is a new kid on the block, a new distraction that beckons to nearly all of us morning, noon and night: our smartphones.

How are we supposed to read deeply, learn and hatch that inspiration with an entire world of social media, text messaging, and emails perpetually pinging for our attention? Never mind that it might even actually ring because someone wants to talk to us. And because of this "smart" device, its practically making us dumb. In an article published in the June 2018 Harvard Business Review, "Having Your Smartphone Nearby Takes a Toll on Your Thinking," by Kristen Duke and her colleagues, research is proving that just having our device on or near us creates enough of a distraction to our brains that on complex tasks, we perform as if we had a lousy night's sleep. Our cognitive abilities are hampered even when those phones are turned off. Worse, the very act of successfully resisting the urge to respond to its every chirp, tweet or ping requires enough mental energy that we still undermine our cognitive abilities. Only when these devices are tucked away, in another room, out of sight, does it's gravitational pull ease upon our addicted minds enough to finally focus on the tasks at hand. Smartphones, while not biologically affecting our physical systems, none-the-less tug at our psyche like cigarettes for a smoker.

This digital influence can have a dramatic affect on how we read as well. As I had discussed the act of getting absorbed in a book, and how the influence a smartphone can have on focused tasks, online reading, if not prepared for carefully, can undo years of immersion in the old-fashioned method of reading a book - with patience and pleasure, enjoying beautiful language and great thoughts. Michael Harris describes in his essay, "I Have Forgotten How to Read," his pain at realizing he could no longer read a book. Through advances in technology, reading on the web has created an impatience that is nearly intolerable. He scours through scores of information for tidbits of usefulness, never really digesting what he is reading. Digital reading though, had become like meth to a user, addictive and destructive, creating a host of cynical readers whose consciousness of even time has eroded, devolving to that of a modern-day neanderthal whose mind and sense are pricked by every sound from which danger could erupt at any moment. Now, we just call it ADHD and prescribe medication (iconically very similar in composition to meth amphetamines) to help sufferers "focus." He too, is determined to set thing right and establish a strategy for returning to a time when he could truly read again.

Cal Newport has written a book, Deep Work, which I am studying my way through in hopes of acquiring this great skill of powerful focus. Much like Harris, I am routinely distracted. Part of my job as a user experience designer is to cater to the impatient user, encouraging him, all in an attempt to make his life "easier." But I am guilty of being other peoples distractions. Having read Mr. Newport's Introduction and the first chapter, I became keenly aware of how I work and when I work best, but also, how my internet impatience intrudes on other people's focus time. I routinely ping people in our office system's instant messaging application even though I can see that they are in a meeting. I know that if they ignore me, they are genuinely busy and I don't continue, but if they reply, I know they are likely on yet another boring meeting and they are multitasking anyway. I usually want answers to my questions right away. I hate to wait too.

But Cal and I are going to be new best friends for a few weeks. I have become excited to begin stripping away the distractions as I can identify them. I want to learn and steep in the wisdom that exists outside this looney bin I call home, or the cookie-cutter "open" seating arrangement we have at work that is so much more distracting. It is my goal to someday, in the not too distant future, be able to create lots of great work, and be able to speak about it's inspiration with the same depth of understanding that the leaders of my industry do today.