This is probably among the more cliched topics I have written, but I am here writing about a life-changing experience of mine which I would like to share and it will be an absolute win for me if even one starts to read a book.
Let's start with a quote I like.
“Stupid people talk gossip, average people talk events, intelligent people talk ideas”
This is a quote I find truer every day…
The main thing to look at in this quote is “Gossip, events, and ideas”.
Gossips and events are a cheaper and lower form of information. Consuming this kind of information accesses just your memory and probably gives you a dopamine shot.
Ideas are a higher form of information. They are abstract. You have to comprehend, introspect, and imagine. Reading ideas are not just difficult but scarce too- especially with the "big information dump" of the internet.
Most of the information we consume is of the lower level – Movies, YouTube, Newspapers, Social media, and TV. All they can give you is something concrete and descriptive but at the same time consuming less your energy, attention, and time. This is where books are special. It gives you Ideas, even more than that, it lets you form your own ideas. It works the higher-level faculties of your brain like Imagination, Introspection, and Intellectualization. That’s why people who watched harry potter and read harry potter had different experiences.
No modern medium communicates with you in such a deep intellectual level. I can even go as far as to say even the weakest of books communicate with you on a higher level than the strongest movies (I am not claiming there have never been any powerful movies, there have). And if you think just tweet-sized book summaries or podcasts or TED talks can make you wiser, then you are seriously mistaken. It is the whole experience, not just the information.
If you don’t read books, First let me tell you why you don’t read books. Books are hard. It is as simple as that. Especially with much easily consumable information around. But if you choose to consume less of cheap information, you can read books.
I read 40 books in the last 12 months and I didn’t read any books a couple of years back. I think it says it all.
We are all information hungry. No matter what information it is. Literally, the word Homo Sapiens means “The knowing person”. I think it is an evolutionary trait. It is one of those things which makes us human. So, we all must be pre-disposed to read books. But why we don’t??
There are a couple of hypotheses about why many stop (or don’t) read books
One, we are losing incentives. The original incentive (the pleasure of knowledge) to read books are lost or at least overwhelmed by our education system, which incentivizes you with grades and worse, stars and ice cream cones, to read books. As causal reading doesn’t offer those incentives along with high consumption of energy and attention, we naturally lose it.
And Two, the universal law of entropy (Path of least resistance), as always is at play. As cheaper and easier information starts to pervade and Information, like any form of hunger, is limited, the hunger for higher forms is sated. Newspapers, magazines, YouTube, TV, and movies displace books. We have no hunger left for books.
I used to read books when my mom strictly limited the TV time to 30 min and when the internet wasn’t as prevalent. Because there was not a lot of ways to quench my information thirst. As it was relaxed in my home, the internet was spreading, and school trying to cultivate the habit of reading newspapers, reading books slowly dropped. I didn’t read a book in 3-4 years before starting again a couple of years back.
If you are not convinced with what I have said above, this might convince you. All successful people (at least a huge majority) have been voracious readers (Not implying the vice-versa here). I know, doing everything that successful people do can be counterproductive and even contradictory. But book reading is something else. If you want to be successful, read books. Don’t try to re-invent the wheel. It increases the probability of your success.
The fact that I don't know a lot of people who I can discuss ideas with says something (About my circle or my communication or the general population, I don’t know). But it can be better.
Starting to read is the hard thing. Finishing the first book you start will probably be even harder. It requires discipline. But if you can successfully go through that “ordeal”, you are in for something that will change your life.
P.S – I am by no means talking about the popular Vampire fantasy and fetish kind of books…. It doesn’t come into this category
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