Abandonment of Reading Books
“We are in the midst of a broken story, and we have lost the ability to parse its lines.” David L. Ulin
With the rise in social media consumption we witness the decline of reading books. Reading is one of the main forms of communication. Through reading we communicate with finest minds no longer exist. We can interact with the historic leaders to future visionaries. There is no doubt that we spend lots of time reading memes, text messages, emails, and other social media content. But in between all the demands of dings and rings, we lost the art of reading. As Jim Rohn said, “Some people claim that it is okay to read trashy novels because sometimes you can find something valuable in them. You can also find a crust of bread in a garbage can, if you search long enough, but there is a better way.” Yes, it is important to read all the urgent and work related stuff but reading books is a better way.
Book reading is not just a habit but it is an art. It offers all seven elements any art consists: form, space, texture, shape, line, color and value. From searching the right book to building the library, it can test and train so many dimensions of a person. Through this piece of writing, I want people to understand that by not reading books they are missing an entire form of pleasure. This piece of writing is dedicated to each and every author who put their creative vulnerabilities on display. Also this piece of writing is dedicated to every reader on this planet who invest their time, money and effort on the intellectual bets of authors. My aim to write this is to inspire generation to come to read more and keep this art alive.
The Form: Tiring Journey of Searching and Reaching Right Book
“Google can bring you back 100,000 answers. A librarian can bring you back the right one.” – Neil Gaiman
A book is not just collection of words but an idea in its complete form. Reading books depends on your ability to search and reach the right book. The person who is not a regular reader always search books the easy way: through google or through asking others. Readers take pleasure in the search. Reader always opt the longest route towards the book: they search the book like a key of treasures.
Searching the right book is just like waiting for true love. Same amount of passion, patience and perseverance required for both. It is a tiring journey but also a rewarding one too. Once you get it, right book or a true love, your life will never be same again.
Searching and Reaching the right book to read sometimes take weeks of work. In the process, you need to search online, listen podcasts, figuring out recommendations of experts, visit bookstores, searching in libraries, and read hundreds of reviews.
Why putting so much effort to find out the right book to read? Two reasons: first, you have a limited time available and you can’t read every book out there. You need to pick the right ones to get maximum return on your efforts. Second, reading the right book is like asking the right question. Answer you will get depends on your question. Want to get life changing answers? Ask right questions by reading right books.
Putting right amount of effort and time on searching the books is the first step towards becoming the better reader.
The Space: Sacred Visit of The Book Store
“A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking.” Jerry Seinfeld.
As technology gets the rise, people are betting more on reading ebooks because it is less costly, immediate access, and it takes no space in the house. With the emergence of ebooks, book stores start losing their value.
But only master readers can feel the ultimate pleasure of visiting the bookstore.
It is an understatement that great things happen at bookstores. It is like a sacred visit to a place that holds the keys to treasures. It is like visiting the one place that can change your life forever.
Walking through different genres and looking towards thousands of books around you can awe you for a moment. It can tells you the wonders of human brain. For me, visiting the bookstore is like going to space. It is like getting awareness about sublime and senseless in one moment. It is about start looking the world around you differently.
In my own life, I remember quite fondly where I came across certain books and the effect they had on my life. I remember the day when I picked Mastery by Robert Greene and it changed my whole life for better. I am proud of my choice to spend countless hours visiting different sections of bookstores than going for vacations. For me, visiting bookstore is nothing less than visiting the land of magic. If the journey of thousand miles begins with a single step, for me, that single step must be taken place in the bookstore. Every step I walk in the bookstore worth thousands of steps I have to take otherwise on the road of suffering of trial and errors.
Visiting bookstores can give you glimpse of importance of reading books. It is one part of the whole journey of reading books. It is the part that can change your luck. It is part of journey that can introduce to the one mentor you desperately need but don’t even know about. It can be the introduction to your next life-changing moment.
Bookstores serve, along with libraries, the function promised in an ancient inscription above the books belonging to King Ozymandias: Ψυχῆς ἰατρεῖον, or, “A House of Healing for the Soul.”
The Texture: Pleasure of Romancing The Book in Hand
“I love books. I adore everything about them. I love the feel of the pages on my fingertips. They are light enough to carry, yet so heavy with worlds and ideas. I love the sound of the pages flicking against my fingers. Print against fingerprints. Books make people quiet, yet they are so loud.” – Nnedi Okerafor
I can’t imagine any other pleasure nearer to one I feel when I unbox the parcel of books. The strength of hardcover book, the warmth of the cover, the beauty of colors, the smell of freshly printed pages, the sounds of cracking of binding, the crispiness of page, polishing my sense of care when I clean the dust from the book, feel of paper quality under my thumbs, sound of pages, design of the book. If this is not a pleasure, what else will?
Old books give different feel and experience to senses. Holding a book from the shelve after a long time can feel like meeting an old friend after some time. Dusting off the cover and pages feel like hugging the friend with joy of meeting again and regret of not meeting regularly. Pages are getting bit darker and telling the story of commitment. Cover is nothing but the picture that shows the tale that this friendship stand the test of time. Looking at old notes feels like trying to remember the forgotten memory. Price on the book tells the story of sacrifices I gave to be with this book. If this is not the love, what else will be?
Romancing the book for me is about feeling the book at hand. Enjoying the design, smell, texture and every single detail of the book. It is about reading the author’s biography. It is about reading the praises given by other experts to this piece of art. It is about cracking the table of content. It is about putting the book into proper context. It is about reading the summary of the book. It is about skipping through book to check the contents before you commit it for longer period of time. It is about those few seconds where you feel the proud that you have a new addition to your collection. It is that unexplainable feel of holding the book in hand after seeing it so many times on internet. It is like holding an invisible idea in hands.
The Shape: Immense Joy of Intense Reading
“No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.” – Lady Mary Wortley Montagu.
Intense reading is about stringing together long, consistent and goal-oriented reading sessions. Yes, you can build a reading habit by reading 15 to 30 minutes a day. Yes, you can use reading as an escape by reading whenever you feel a need to read. But if you want to pursue reading as an art, you need to experience the immense joy of intense reading.
Master reader set few marathon reading session throughout the month. Those sessions are pre-planned with specific goal in mind. For example, I want to read biography of Edison written by Edmund Morris which is by the way 800 pages long book. It can easily intimidate any reader. Once I start approaching it as a master reader, I will set out period of 3 to 5 days for reading the book cover to cover. For that, I need to plan multiple sessions per day of reading that book. At the end of fifth day, If I keep showing up session after session and read actively, I will figure out the real benefits of intense reading.
Intense reading session can test your seriousness about reading. It also develop your character regarding tough, focus demanding and grit-based tasks. Intense reading can provide you unmatched benefits.
These intense reading sessions are not only about reading the book. It is also about training the brain to focus on task at hand. It is also a drill for your body to discipline itself on the goal set by mind. It is also a spiritual exercise of testing your patience for long-term reward. It also provide emotional benefits because you spent 5 days of your life with the story of a master innovator.
People do talk about reading biographies and their benefits. But once you ask them to talk about the person in detail, they will tell you only the information publicly famous. Why? Because they skip through the biography. They go through the books and only learn what others have learned from the book. Only Intense reading can give you detailed look at person’s life.
The Line: Private Conversation with Author At Corners of Page
“Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
An ameteur reader just passively read but a master reader take pleasure in active reading by having conversation with author. Line after line, understanding what author’s perspective is, and by taking notes on the margins of the page a reader respond to whatever book is offering.
As the Roman philosopher Seneca said, we need to read so that “words become works.” Reading must be done in a way that can connect the dots in readers mind. We should go back to books with clear purpose in mind.
Book reading offer high return on investment if done with some intent. Isn’t it amazing to have a conversation with legendary master or innovator who lived his life hundreds of years before you?
A book is a package of author’s experiences and insights worth decades of work. Reader can get access to those learnings in just few hours.
Whatever you read outside books i.e. in magazines, on social media, and on internet is nothing but wandering opinions of writers. Only books can offer you well organized arguments and deep analysis of topic.
Active reading also provide the role of anchor for the wandering thoughts of readers. By highlighting, taking notes on corners, collecting useful quotes, underlining stories, and making comments to oneself, a reader can keep his mind focused on the page at hand.
Only through active reading, one can connect two dots to make the line. In this age of social media bloggers, people are try to promote speed reading and just going through books. But is it worth it? Reading as an art demands the proper work on the component of making something worthy out of it.
The Color: Picturing Possibilities and Drawing Conclusion
“Books are our maps.” – Matt Haig
By having the right book and reading it actively, you can set the perfect stage where your imagination can perform miracles.
Just picture the possibility: You can find wisdom of thousands of years and wisest of all men in one book. Is it a bad deal? You can find journey of thousand steps on few pages written by high performer, billionaire, or scholar. Isn’t it worth it? You can uncover secrets of ages and beauty of supreme souls lived before you in few books. Isn’t it magical? Over 107 billion people have lived throughout history. (There are roughly 7.7 billion people alive right now.) The cumulative lessons of 107 billion people have been passed down to you through books. Isn’t the greatest gift you will ever receive?
Here is the conclusion you need to draw out of reading: We all need to build better understanding about life. We all need to read philosophy and create our own philosophy for our life. We all need to learn about human psychology to understand deeper science of our brain and behavior. We all need to go deep in literature, fiction, history and future to make sense of our world. We all need to learn about business and marketing and persuasion so we can live a life on our terms. We all need to read books to get some better perspectives. Yes, we can get all of these things through experience but isn’t it longest route? Isn’t it will create much more panic and will be much more costly for you? Back in 2013, when I started my reading project, whole idea was that I should build deeper understanding about life to live the life on my terms. Instead of being satisfied on what was given to me by others or society as CURRICULUM and live my life on those terms. I go deep in books and books help me in return. Books give me perspectives and mindset required to live a successful, happy and calm life. I witness everyday, thousands of people running whole day in hurry to figure out simple fact they can find in two lines in any book. So, my dear readers, start reading books. Start building some perspective and make your life and this planet little bit better than you find.
The Value: Building Library and Legacy, Book By Book
“A house that has a library in it has a soul.” – Plato
As I said at start, an art has many component. So does the art of reading books. One crucial component of art is its value. Value of reading books is immeasurable. Want to take book reading to next level? Build a personal library in the house.
Having a personal library is not only provide you value when you are alive but it can work as a legacy you leave for the ones who left behind after you die. It is the ultimate peak of the whole journey. Building a library, book after book, demand full commitment from you. It will test your financial, emotional, mental, spiritual and physical strength.
As the saying goes that “There is no self-made man. We all are standing on the shoulders of giants.” It is also true that higher we want to go in life, higher the stacks of books we should have in our house. One of my mentor told me earlier in my career that average performers have big TV in the house and high performers have big libraries in their house. I choose to have big library.
From buying books to organizing them on shelf to taking care of those books to spending time in personal library can lift your soul to place you can never ever imagine.
As the Taleb said in his book The Black Swan, “Only an idiot walks into someone’s library and says “Have you really read all these books?” A good library is filled with unread books– an “antilibrary.” Having an “antilibrary” is also key step in building a personal library. You need to have more books in personal library than you read. It can always keep you humble that you have to learn more.
By owning the books, you commit to reading on totally different level. Start small and keeps on building. By having books available in your personal library is a great luxury for me as a writer. It can serve you no matter you are writer or not. Spend time there. Go through books. Read. Take notes. You will never regret the decision.
For me, library is my love, life and livelihood.
Redemption of Reading Books
“We shouldn’t teach great books; we should teach a love reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.” – B. F. Skinner
In this age, when people around you searching for inner peace by going to luxury vacations, owning the latest gadgets, trying to do everything, and practicing all types of meditations and yogas. You should start taking retreat in books.
Building a personal library and reading books is the ultimate cure for so many of today’s mental and emotional annoyances like anxiety, mental chatter, wishful thinking, and trying to compete with others.
This art needs our attention. We need to put in the individual efforts to make sure that it live through next generation. Yes, we need space programs to explore the universe. Yes, we need to have trees in order to save the environment. On the same note, we also need to have libraries and books in every house in order to maintain and sustain the sanity of masses.
Book reading take as much promotion as any other form of art. Redemption of book reading is basically a redemption of our own lost sense of connection with wisdom. In this frazzled world, library can give you a corner where you can find stillness. On an anxious night when you struggle to sleep, reading a book can work the magic to you.
When I look around at all the kids spending hours and hours on social media, I realized that they’d never had the luxury to feel what reading can bring to them.
You are invited. To bring the change. To bring back books to our culture.
I’ve learned that no one is beyond redemption. We tackle problems. And we grow stronger. Start contributing to cause by reading books, building personal libraries, disciplining your children to read more, giving books as birthday gifts, setting up meetings to discuss books.
I am just one guy, who is promoting reading. But what if you join me. One by one. By me and you and us. This is how we can shape the better world.
