I’m suffering from The Reading Problem again and anew, the evil spell and joyful tonic of reading others and then struggling with the many fires they ignite in my mind. It’s like, gasoline has been poured on dry grass, matches tossed on it. A warehouse of explosives has…exploded. But the explosions are thoughts, insights, themes, concepts, ideas, visions, memories, epiphanies, realities, all brought up by others’ words.

My wife and I spoke about this sometime earlier this week, after watching Carpool Karaoke, Broadway edition. We ‘found’ James Corden early on in Gavin and Stacey. He lives up to my hopes that he was the talented individual that he seemed to be (thus vindicating my taste, intelligence, and insights, you see). But, as usual, I’m jealous of the little blue eyed bastard for doing neat things like singing with Lin-Manuel Miranda ‘and more’ – (like Audra McDonald, a pretty damn good ‘and more’, along with Jane Krakowski and Jesse Tyler Ferguson – yeah, ‘and more’). Which prompted the expected, “Gee, wouldn’t it be great to be so talented and to know such talented people and have them as friends and get together to do fun, talented things?” Like the artists and writers in Paris did. Dorothy Parker and friends. Or the Hollywood Vampires, or The Traveling Wilburys. “Let’s get together and do an album, Tom Petty.” “Sure, and let’s call Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and George Harrison and see if they want to play along.” “Okay, Jeff Lynne.”

But I’m a writer, cocooned in my own self and its creations of doubts, suspicions and insecurities about who I am, hoping that I’ll grow out of it all some day (I’ll be 60 this year, and I hear that 60 is the new forty, but I’m hoping it’s the new 20) so I don’t socialize well, not like Stephen King and the Remainders. I’m more like J.D. Salinger with less talent and intelligence. So I don’t belong to any round tables and don’t do pop ins.

Reading is my outlet, along with conversations with my wife, a highly remarkable, intelligent, and well read person (you should play Jeopardy or Trivial Pursuit with her). She tells me things, and that fires up my mind, like quoting American Dervish writer Ayad Ahktar about writing and his amazing accomplishments as she prepares for her book club.

My mind had already been inflamed by reading other posts. Sweet lord, the amazing writers out there, with insights and inventive, beautiful language. The subjects they choose, the rawness displayed as they strip naked and flash their pain. While I often debase the Internet of Things as the web of greed and misinformation, gems can be found without much effort. People are exploring themselves and telling us what they found, or what can’t be found, or what they’re hoping to find, and the trouble they’re having with their efforts.

If you want a similar mind explosion to what I endured, discover WordPress. Just follow along, and read.