Reading as a (R)evolutionary Act
33 Reasons to Read a Book a Day
[Still editing, but if you are here, you get an early read before the final draft!] — David Rainoshek
With that, here are 33 Reasons to Read a Book a Day as a (R)evolutionary Act…
#1 | To Cultivate *Autotelos*
“You learn and create no matter what the world is or is not doing, whether you are financially well off or not, regardless of your relationship status, work status, weather patterns, political madness, global events, or whether anyone is watching.” — David Rainoshek, MA
The fact that you are reading this right now means you are Autotelic. That is no small thing — it is a capacity we all have, but is rarely activated.
You have cultivated your own agency — a self-driven, self-generated creative and evolutionary drive to honor and incorporate ever more knowledge, perspectives, and capacities to become more than you were before.
Not everyone is like you. Most people are not Autotelic — or, they are, but have not engaged the capacity… it is latent, not engaged.
I fortunately learned about “Autotelos” from psychologist and author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced “Chick-sent-me-high”) in his fascinating book, Finding Flow. He writes:
“′Autotelic′ is a word composed of two Greek roots: auto (self), and telos (goal). An autotelic activity is one we do for its own sake because to experience it is the main goal. Applied to personality, autotelic denotes an individual who generally does things for their own sake, rather than in order to achieve some later external goal” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1997)
“The mark of the autotelic personality is the ability to manage a rewarding balance between the ′play′ of challenge finding and the ′work′ of skill building” (Csikszentmihalyi et al., 1993)
Reading. READING at its best is your own fully activated Autotelos: engaged, playful, and inspired. As an autotelic reader you have decided to access some of the most profound perspectives, directives, and experiences of writers and mentors the world over, at at little or no cost to you.
Activating your autotelic capacities to read and learn is one of the best investments you will ever make, and reading great books pays off almost immediately.
Great Books reorganize and uplift your worldspace, your worldview — the way you see, respond, and create with everyone and everything you encounter. Great books are profoundly lifechanging, and reading them is both an expression and exercise of your own self-generated Autotelos.
To be Autotelic is the polar opposite of being a human automaton :
“a machine or control mechanism designed to follow automatically a predetermined sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions.”
Who likes being a foregone conclusion of Fox News, MSNBC, The New York Times, their parents, their upbringing… we like being free and novel actors in our lives, not behaving according to (often) mass-marketed “predetermined instructions.”
To paraphrase the great American poet Walt Whitman, being a great reader and creative force means listening to all sides, then filtering the perspectives from yourself as a free-thinker.
So when you meet someone who also reads a lot, you can compliment them on being Autotelic — and also an Autodidact, the next reason to read a Book a Day.
#2 | To Be an *Autodidact*
“Autodidact” is a little-used term, but it is one you should grip tightly to and integrate into the Kosmos of yourself. An Autodidact is a Self-Taught, Self-Educated person, either specifically in one thing or discipline, or more generally. It is at the heart of the creative, evolutionary spirit of humankind… agentic, self-driven growth and development.
Books and advocates on the subject are legion. Almost any great person throughout human history was not just born with natural talent or had a great Mentor — they were autodidacts every one. To push through to our own self-actualization, we eventually have to — as a matter of creative, tailored efficiency of learning — chart our own course.
Some notable recent books on being a revolutionary autodidact are:
You can read a superb overview of The Secrets of a Buccaneer Scholar here… I highly recommend reading the overview regularly to keep your own autotelic, autodidactic capacities sharp and growing.
#3 | To Develop a Skill or Value-Add to Something Larger Than Yourself
“Formal education will make you a living… self education will make you a fortune.” — Jim Rohn
[writing here]
#4 | Know Yourself Better
“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book?” — Thoreau in Walden.
We see our own dilemmas, our own selves, even as we enter the imaginative world of some other self, full of other characters.
#5 | Readers Are Leaders
Says Tony Robbins. But what does that guy know? He writes:
“Years ago, one of my teachers, Jim Rohn, taught me that reading something of substance, something of value, something that was nurturing, something that taught you new distinctions every day, was more important than eating. He got me hooked on the idea of reading a minimum of 30 minutes every day. He said, ‘Miss a meal, but don’t miss your reading.’ I’ve found this to be one of the most valuable distinctions in my life.”
#6 | For Mind Athletics and “Intellectual Cross-Training”
“The person who does not read good books has no advantage over the person who can’t read.” — Mark Twain
Physical Cross-Training is essential for exercising the body over a wide range of capacities. It prevents injury, opens greater possibilities for activity, and a diversity of exercise accelerates development in your main form of physical engagement. For example, football players who also do ballet perform better on the field than players who just run and work out at the gym.
Reading a wide range of topics and styles improves your mind, your creativity, and massively accelerates your interior development (cognitive, emotional, musical, moral, etc.) in the same way that physical cross-training does. Reading a diverse range of subjects exercises our “Multiple Intelligences” as developed by Howard Gardner. Here is a nice chart of your own multiple intelligences:
Understanding the interface of Multiple Intelligences and Cross-Training is why I read A Book a Day, and on multiple topics: psychology, poetry, startups and entrepreneurialism, philosophy, politics, art, creativity, sports, adventure, fiction, technology, biographies.
American philosopher Ken Wilber speaks to the extraordinary benefits Integral cross-training here:
What you will find when you read a diversity of topics and authors — and better yet, multiple books at the same time — is that the authors and insights you gain begin to speak to each other in creative and novel ways in your own mind.
Things naturally — and surprisingly — come together in your awareness that otherwise never would have. This creative and novel integration of seemingly unrelated topics to form new ideas and ways of being is called “Vision Logic,” and is a high level of cognitive development enjoyed by people who read. Which leads us to…
#7 | Be the Smartest Person in the Room, Without Being the Brainiest
“In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.” — Mortimer Adler
I seldom remember the names of all the characters in the fiction works I read. Exact quotes, precise names and facts on the tip of my tongue… sometimes I can conjure them exactly, oftentimes I have to look them up. (Which is why I write in all my books, as in the image below.)
But in reading vast stretches of information, life experiences, events, and perspectives on these things, it is not so necessary that I remember everything verbatim as I know where to go and get the information… and that the lessons I learn and perspectives I take into my own self that inform my own perspectives, behaviors, decisions, and creativity are intact.
In other words, I am not hypermemorizing everything I read, I am hypercognizant… And I learned this from a valuable anecdote about Albert Einstein. This excerpt is from my HyperLearning book and Course:
The famous physicist Albert Einstein was once asked by a smart reporter, “Professor Einstein, do you know the formula for converting Fahrenheit into Celsius and back?”
Einstein paused and said he did not. The reporter was baffled. “You’re Albert Einstein, the developer of the Theory of Relativity. One of the brightest minds of our age, and you mean to tell me you don’t know how to convert the temperature measurements Fahrenheit and Celsius?”
Einstein’s reply: “I don’t use my mind to remember such information. If I need it, I know where to go and get it. I devote my mind to more creative pursuits.”
And there you have it. HyperLearning could also be qualified as being HyperFamiliar or SuperCognizant of a lot of perspectives, ideas, persons, places, ways of being, insights, etc.
HyperLearning does NOT mean HyperMemorization
Let’s leave the memory of so many details to our subconscious mind and to computer technology… freeing up our energy to be uniquely human in our creative and heart-centered pursuits (or endeavors run ruthlessly from the gut :)
Knowing where to get that conversion formula for Fahrenheit to Celsius and back is more important — more of the time — than memorizing it and the thousand-and-one other things.
#8 | “Saturation Learning” Positively Rewires and Upgrades Your Mind to Expert Status
“I am fascinated when I see someone who is totally alive. I am intrigued by phenomenal success. I love hearing success stories. Saturating my mind with the secrets of health and the stories of super success has revolutionized my life. The mystery of incredible success is unlocked when one’s fascination is met with saturation.” — David Wolfe
One of my favorite excerpts on “Saturation” learning is from David Wolfe, author of The Sunfood Diet Success System. For your enjoyment, here is Wolfe on the saturation approach to learning and personal evolution:
“You are made or unmade by your own education. You are at the source; you can control what information you are allowing to enter your awareness. You may study anything you desire. You can recapture a child’s ability to learn by becoming inspired by new information. Studies presented in progressive educational books, such as The Learning Brain by Gorden Dryden and Jeannette Vos, prove that learning causes the brain to physically grow and rewire itself in a whole new way.
We learn in many ways: by repetition, by emotional impact, but the absolutely most powerful way to learn and master any subject is by saturation.
In my experience, the entire secret of success is saturation. Start bombarding yourself with words and pictures consistent with your goals. Just have fun. Read books which forward you in the direction you are headed. Listen to success tapes in your car. Listen to success tapes while you eat. Watch educational videotapes at the end of the day. Attend seminars which provide additional inspiration to accelerate your goal achievement.
I guarantee that, when you start this program of massive saturation, you will dramatically improve your entire life and begin to manifest your dreams rapidly.
The most successful individuals in any field remain so by continuously adding to their own stock of knowledge by appropriating the thoughts, phrases, and ideas of geniuses through a program of information saturation. A mind nourished continuously by the ideas of genius minds will remain alert, brilliant, flexible, and receptive. If this renewal is neglected, the mind will stagnate — we see this in musicians who seem to have lost their “edge.” “If you don’t use it, you lose it,” is a common phrase of simple yet profound truth — it is in strict accordance with the cosmic laws.
The way to make a radical change in your life is to consistently bombard your brain with a new stream of personal-development information, presented by different people, and presented in different formats. Since your number one goal is to be totally healthy, all the information entering your mind should be furthering that goal and none of the information should be detracting from it.
Saturation means attending every health seminar possible. Attend ever success seminar possible. Attend every seminar given in your specialty area. Each speaker can provide you with wonderful distinctions which can transform your life. Anyone speaker might say something you have heard before, but in a slightly different way, a way which immediately applies to you. The energy of a live performance cannot be matched. Go to success seminars for fun.
When you are healthy, and your suggestive environment is cleared, You can accelerate your success by converting all information entering your mind into one focused field — the field in which you desire to excel. Make all information input positive, uplifting, and focused on the items necessary in this field for your goal achievement. You can become an expert in any field in less than five years, and if you truly saturate yourself in the way I have advised, you can become an expert in any field in two or three years.
If you want health, you have to study health. If you want success, you have to study success. In my own life, I have made a study of superior health and incredible success. I am fascinated by vibrant health. I am fascinated when I see someone who is totally alive. I am intrigued by phenomenal success. I love hearing success stories. It is so interesting to hear the stories behind mega-music bands, such as The Beatles or The Bee Gees or ABBA. Saturating my mind with the secrets of health and the stories of super success has revolutionized my life. The mystery of incredible success is unlocked when one’s fascination is met with saturation. — David Wolfe, The Sunfood Diet Success System
#9 | To Gain Power
“Information is the commodity of Kings.” — Tony Robbins
We earlier mentioned that Readers are Leaders, but to drive that point home it will help to consider two people in personally and culturally powerless positions who overcame the socially-imposed limitations of their past and present to chart a new course for themselves and the future of millions of Americans. To wit: black African-Americans Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X.
In his autobiography, Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglas, An American Slave, Douglass writes that his owner forbade his wife to teach a slave to read on the grounds that it would “forever unfit him to be a slave.” “I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty — to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man,” writes Douglass. “It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom… I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read.”
The reading of The Autobiography of Malcolm X was a formative event in my life. Reading about the impact that reading itself had on Malcolm X’s discovery of passion and purpose awoke in me a long-latent desire to educate and empower myself (as a self-educated autodidact) in service to others. I cannot recommend The Autobiography highly enough, if you have not yet read it. The most potent excerpt on reading:
“I suppose it was inevitable that as my word-base broadened, I could for the first time pick up a book and read and now begin to understand what the book was saying. Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine the new world that opened. Let me tell you something: from then until I left that prison, in every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the library, I was reading on my bunk. You couldn’t have gotten me out of books with a wedge… months passed without my even thinking about being imprisoned. In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life.
When I had progressed to really serious reading, every night at about ten P.M. I would be outraged with the “lights out.” It always seemed to catch me right in the middle of something engrossing.
Fortunately, right outside my door was a corridor light that cast a glow into my room. The glow was enough to read by, once my eyes adjusted to it. So when “lights out” came, I would sit on the floor where I could continue reading in that glow.
At one-hour intervals the night guards paced past every room. Each time I heard the approaching footsteps, I jumped into bed and feigned sleep. And as soon as the guard passed, I got back out of bed onto the floor area of that light-glow, where I would read for another fifty-eight minutes-until the guard approached again. That went on until three or four every morning. Three or four hours of sleep a night was enough for me. Often in the years in. the streets I had slept less than that.
I have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me. I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.
I certainly wasn’t seeking any degree, the way a college confers a status symbol upon its students. My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness, and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America. Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me from London,’ asking questions. One was, “What’s your alma mater?” I told him, “Books.”
You will never catch me with a free fifteen minutes in which I’m not studying something I feel might be able to help the black man.”
Reading led Malcolm X on a journey of rediscovery about himself, his culture, the history of America — and slavery in America — and a way forward for an entire nation.
Spike Lee directed Malcolm X starring Denzel Washington. It is a great biographical film, right up there with Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi. Here’s the trailer:
#10 | Intelligence is Sexy
“You fall in love with people’s minds.” — Anais Nin
A sapiosexual is defined as: “One who finds intelligence the most sexually attractive feature,” and they are way more common than you’d think. Intelligence truly is sexy, and there is a scientific basis to why.
According to Diana Rabb, a Ph.D. in transpersonal psychology: “The brain is the largest sex organ. Those who admit to being sapiosexual will say that they are turned on by the brain and tend to be teased or excited by the insights of another person. As foreplay, the sapiosexual person may crave philosophical, political or psychological discussions because this turns [him or her] on.”
To be intelligent means a better chance of survival, humor, creativity and novelty, curiosity, more options, and often a greater diversity and fullness of life experience, i.e. thriving at life. The best of intelligence means continued growth forth from the care and concern of one’s self to that of others and the world at large. Intelligence carried forth rigorously and passionately means creative, actualized compassion for others and the betterment of the world.
Activating our multiple intelligences is the engagement of the Hero archetype in oneself. The best intelligence benefits everyone. And who doesn’t find that sexy?
Books, voracious reading, and self-education were some of the catalyzing factors for finding and recognizing my Soulmate, Katrina.
#11 | We Read for Vicarious Experiences
50 Shades of Gray was, in my opinion, a terribly written book — almost comically so — and the film was poorly scripted, cast, and delivered. The “Sapiosexuals” highlighted in the previous section might be less turned on by the book, and more turned on by someone who can critique and/or make fun of it. That being said…
50 Shades provided to readers a ubiquitously available, widely accepted cultural artifact depicting explicit scenes of BDSM and sexual play that would otherwise not be experience-able or acceptable topics of conversation for the great majority of people (at least in the U.S.) who read the novel. And thus, a piece of true “pulp fiction” served to expand the sensual, sexual horizons of millions of people who would have otherwise never had said ideas, inclinations, or experiences (vicarious though they may be) otherwise. And as someone who is for the demystification of the varieties of sexual experience in favor of re-mystification of sexuality, sensuality, and union in mind/soul/spirit expanding relationships, I think this is a step forward (however poorly scripted) for individuals and society.
But that is just a provocative example. The vicarious experiences we access through reading are endless and profound.
[Give examples here]
#12 | We Read for Sensual Explorations
My wife described to me a scene from the book The Kite Runner in which the boys were throwing pomegranates at a wall to see them explode.
[Perhaps provide excerpt here]
#13 | To Amuse Yourself
The best writers are seriously hilarious, as are the best political commentators. In recent history, Mark Twain has been reincarnated on video media with the likes of The Daily Show’s recently retired Jon Stewart (current host: Trevor Noah); Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report; Last Week Tonight’s John Oliver; and Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp (highly recommended).
But humor writing is everywhere.
#14 | To Develop Your Wit
#15 | Reduce Stress: Read with Music and Tea
“Reading is the best way to relax and even six minutes can be enough to reduce the stress levels by more than two thirds, according to new research.”
Reading can reduce stress levels by 68 per cent, according to the University of Sussex research and cognitive neuropsychologist Dr David Lewis.
And it works better and faster than other methods to calm frazzled nerves such as listening to music, going for a walk or settling down with a cup of tea, research found.
Psychologists believe this is because the human mind has to concentrate on reading and the distraction of being taken into a literary world eases the tensions in muscles and the heart.
The research was carried out on a group of volunteers by consultancy Mindlab International at the University of Sussex.
Subjects’ stress levels and heart rate were increased through a range of tests and exercises before they were then tested with a variety of traditional methods of relaxation.
Subjects only needed to read, silently, for six minutes to slow down the heart rate and ease tension in the muscles, he found. In fact it got subjects to stress levels lower than before they started.
Listening to music reduced the levels by 61 per cent, have a cup of tea of coffee lowered them by 54 per cent and taking a walk by 42 per cent.
So for a free, thoroughly enjoyable stress-reducing, evolutionary time, read over tea with some classical music in the background. Your adrenals will thank you (and most of us are chronically adrenal-fatigued at this point.) You adrenals will also benefit from better sleep, with which reading also helps significantly.
#16 | Reading Before Bed Can Help You Sleep
“Creating a bedtime ritual, like reading before bed, signals to your body that it’s time to wind down and go to sleep, according to the Mayo Clinic.
Reading a real book helps you relax more than zoning out in front of a screen before bed. Screens like e-readers and tablets can actually keep you awake longer and even hurt your sleep. The beautiful LED screen that you are reading this article on tells your brain that the sun is up, and that keeps you awake.
That applies to kids too: Fifty-four percent of children sleep near a small screen, and clock 20 fewer minutes of shut-eye on average because of it, according to research published in Pediatrics. So reach for the literal page-turners before switching off the light. A paper book and some low light tells your brain to prepare for a good night’s sleep — which will help you process, retain, and use what you read more effectively tomorrow.
#17 | Improve Your Memory
In their book Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain, Maryanne Wolf explains that “Typically, when you read, you have more time to think. Reading gives you a unique pause button for comprehension and insight. By and large, with oral language “when you watch a film or listen to a tape, you don’t press pause.” The benefits of this increased activity keeps your memory sharp and your learning capacity nimble.
And Lana Winter-Hebert writes on LifeHack: “When you read a book, you have to remember an assortment of characters, their backgrounds, ambitions, history, and nuances, as well as the various arcs and sub-plots that weave their way through every story. That’s a fair bit to remember, but brains are marvellous things and can remember these things with relative ease. Amazingly enough, every new memory you create forges new synapses (brain pathways)and strengthens existing ones, which assists in short-term memory recall as well as stabilizing moods. How cool is that?”
#18 | Possess a More Eloquent Vocabulary: Reading Wins the Day over T.V.
“Diving into a good book opens up a whole world of knowledge starting from a very young age. Children’s books expose kids to 50 percent more words than prime time TV, or even a conversation between college graduates, according to a paper from the University of California, Berkeley.
Exposure to that new vocabulary not only leads to higher score on reading tests, but also higher scores on general tests of intelligence. Plus, stronger early reading skills may mean higher intelligence later in life.” Source
#19 | Reading Can Make You More Empathetic
“At this point in history, the most radical, pervasive, and earth-shaking transformation would occur simply if everybody truly evolved to a mature, rational, and responsible worldcentric ego, capable of freely participating in the open exchange of mutual concern and self-esteem. There is the “edge of history”. There would be a real New Age.” — Ken Wilber
One of the main engines of Interpersonal and Moral Development is the ability to take the role of others.
“Getting lost in a good read can make it easier for you to relate to others. Literary fiction, specifically, has the power to help its readers understand what others are thinking by reading other people’s emotions, according to research published in Science. The impact is much more significant on those who read literary fiction as opposed to those who read nonfiction. “Understanding others’ mental states is a crucial skill that enables the complex social relationships that characterize human societies,” David Comer Kidd and Emanuele Castano wrote of their findings.” Source
#20 | Reading is Positively Contagious
“To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.” — Victor Hugo
“Seventy-five percent of parents wish their children would read more for fun, and those who want to encourage their children to become bookworms can start by reading out loud at home.
While most parents stop reading out loud after their children learn to do it on their own, a new report from Scholastic suggests that reading out loud to kids throughout their elementary school years may inspire them to become frequent readers — meaning kids who read five to seven days per week for fun.
More than 40 percent of frequent readers ages six through 10 were read to out loud at home, but only 13 percent of those who did not read often for fun were. Translation? Story time offers a good way to spark an interest in the hobby.” Source
#21 | To Be A Better Reader
“So many books, so little time.” — Frank Zappa
Reading begets better reading. Here’s why:
Reading Skillz: No matter what we do in life, if we do it more often, our abilities in that domain improve. With reading, it is no different. The more you read, the better your vocabulary gets, the swifter your eyes pick up larger groupings of words, the more readily you grasp main ideas and move through the text. If you want to read like a HyperLearner, combining speed reading, Photo Reading, and other potent techiques to read a Book a Day, I recommend my HyperLearning Course.
No Fear. The more we read, the less fear we have with approaching new books, authors, topics, and experiences. We see ourselves go through stages of excitement, unease, familiarity, solidity, command, and new understandings and capabilities thanks to a fresh book, author, or topic. Over time, these stages become easier, welcome parts of our own growth, which we welcome.
Another way to say it is that our neuroplasticity (the ability of our brain to change) increases, and with it, the evolution of who we are being and becoming.
Topic Familiarity: One of the most voracious readers I know, Ken Wilber, can read 3–5 books a day, and has routinely done so for decades. It is not just because he has reading skills and a lack of fear around new topics. He is intensely familiar with a wide range of topics and professionals in those fields. As your command of a topic, author, or line of thought improves, you read faster. “Yeah, yeah, got it, got it, got it…” You breeze through familiar material. Ands then, “Oh! That’s new.” The more we read, the better we get at getting to the new material and increasing our understanding, critical thinking, and creative capacities.
The Best Selections: The more you read, the better you get at telling shit from shinola. At first, if you are going completely on your own, your selections may not be as well-informed as they will be once you have a grasp of who and what is out there.
But after you have read for a while, you will be able to cut through the bull better (there are a lot of low-quality books out there), and get to the reading that has the most traction for you. This makes reading an increasingly exciting endeavor, not only because you read better and better material, but also because the hours you read that material are — on balance — more well invested with each passing month.
#22 | To Eliminate Commercials
“Books are the perfect entertainment: no commercials, no batteries, hours of enjoyment for each dollar spent. What I wonder is why everybody doesn’t carry a book around…” — Stephen King
In my article, “How Facebook is Altering Your Mind,” I reference the numerous random advertisements FB places in your “newsfeed” to jolt dopamine hits in your brain. We are addicted to those dopamine jolts on FB the way we are dopamine-addicts to the Jolts-Per-Minute (JPM) on television “programming.”
Responses to that article ironically — and appropriately — went viral on FB when it was published in 2013, and a common comment was that people felt they were good at “filtering out” or “not taking notice” of the ads they were shown on FB and everywhere else in life. They were not swayed or influenced by ads.
Sure. I understand the logic. It does feel that way. We don’t click, and we don’t buy… right now, that is. Advertisers are in for the long game. They are not pitching you on buying today, but years from now when you have looooong forgotten you ever saw that ad.
[More here]
Reading — particularly paper books — is relatively ad-free. You are being offered perspectives, but rarely products. And good books offer perspectives on life that can inform and upgrade your life immensely, regardless of your financial status and material wealth. Books develop your interiors — your mind, emotions, capabilities, morals, interpersonal skills, etc. Almost invariably, great books are written to improve who you are.
Commercial advertising, on the other hand, is designed to offer you products that don’t make you a better, more evolved person, just the same person with another thing.
[More here]
This brings us to the next beautiful reason to read…
#23 | Unplug
I find television to be very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go in the other room and read a book. — Groucho Marx
Speaking of advertising, it isn’t always without merit. REI did a brilliant campaign in 2015 for Black Friday:
How prescient. We are so incredibly plugged in. Tiringly so at times. Fused to our electronics. The good news is that the world is getting together and sharing and learning more than ever before. The bad news? We often don’t stop. In the words of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, “We look like we are walking around on hot charcoal.” Our nervous systems are burning down and out from the constant and ubiquitous barrage of media and updates. Adrenal fatigue is a reigning 21st-Century disorder.
Books are the internet and media, unplugged. When we read, we are still engaged, curious, learning, growing, contemplating, discussing, but at the pace of our own personal interiors, our own mind — unplugged from the digital [dig-it-all] LED, hyperreal nonstop pinged updates.
With books we take time to sit back and breathe. We can feel the paper between our fingers, hear the pages turn, smell the ink, and write notes by hand in our own personal and unique handwriting. In our minutes and hours of reading a paper book, the act is for us alone. No one to “like” our notes or comments, it is private time to contemplate and breathe the pace of our own life. Reading is positively egocentric without encouraging the narcissistic performance theatrics and like-seeking many of us find ourselves sucked into online.
Books — paper books — are a beautiful, artful opportunity to unplug in a timelessly cool way. And remember to include #15 above… tea and music.
#24 | For Time Travel
“One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.” — Carl Sagan
Reading is a discount ticket to everywhere. — Mary Schmich
#25 | To Be An Original
“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” — Haruki Murakami
“When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue — you sell him a whole new life.” — Christopher Morley
Reading is formative.
#26 | We Read to Know We Are Not Alone
“I love books that make me cry out, ‘But I’ve asked that too! I’ve felt that too!’ In my play about C.S.Lewis, Shadowlands, I gave Lewis the line, ‘We read to know we’re not alone.’ That has been my own experience. It’s through books that people I’ve never met have reached out to me, saying, ‘This is what matters most to me. Does it matter to you too?’ This feeds something very different to the appetite for entertainment. It feeds, I suppose, the hunger for meaning.” — William Nicholson on his writing of Shadowlands
Reading is a unity experience of shared meaning. Unity with others. Unity with experiences, possibilities, events, ideas, feelings, peoples. But why do we seek Unity? Two major guiding quotes in my life answer this important question:
- Ken Wilber has said, “The only love that will ever satisfy is that with the entire Kosmos.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh wrote, “Understanding is Love.” I have an original piece of his calligraphy on my wall as an artful reminder:
Combined, we get, “The only understanding and love that will ever satisfy is that of and with the entire Kosmos.”
We read to know that we are not alone — that we are having a unity of experience and understanding with others. We read to understand, to unify, and thus to empower ourselves in love with the entire Kosmos.
#27 | Reading is Free Education
“You dropped 150 Grand on an education you could’a got for a dollar-fifty in late charges at the public library.” — Will Hunting
Remember this bar scene from Good Will Hunting?
Good stuff. Regarding the immense resource we have in Public Libraries, Lana Winter Hebert writes:
Though many of us like to buy books so we can annotate them and dog-ear pages for future reference, they can be quite pricey. For low-budget entertainment, you can visit your local library and bask in the glory of the countless tomes available there for free. Libraries have books on every subject imaginable, and since they rotate their stock and constantly get new books, you’ll never run out of reading materials.
If you happen to live in an area that doesn’t have a local library, or if you’re mobility-impaired and can’t get to one easily, most libraries have their books available in PDF or ePub format so you can read them on your e-reader, iPad, or your computer screen. There are also many sources online where you can download free e-books, so go hunting for something new to read!
There’s a reading genre for every literate person on the planet, and whether your tastes lie in classical literature, poetry, fashion magazines, biographies, religious texts, young adult books, self-help guides, street lit, or romance novels, there’s something out there to capture your curiosity and imagination. Step away from your computer for a little while, crack open a book, and replenish your soul for a little while.
And college is getting crazy expensive…a topic for another article. But being an Autodidact and educating yourself is an increasingly attractive option. Ray Bradbury writes of his self-education in the public library: “I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves — you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library, and I’d written a thousand stories.” — Ray Bradbury
Time to dust off that library card, or grab a fresh new one.
#28 | To Keep History Honest
“Books are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill.” — Barbara Tuchman
George Santayana writes in The Life of Reason, “Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness… Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
Many of the mistakes we make concerning: history; politics, policies and worldviews; economics; and socio-cultural issues, come down to a lack of holding enough perspectives for a full and capable understanding-point from which to speak and act.
The more we read, the more perspectives we take into ourselves… we filter things through ourselves, as Walt Whitman so beautifully put it.
Whether you finally agree with it or not, reading revolutionary authors and thinkers in the domain of “revisionist history” can be incredibly interesting, enlightening, and worldview-altering. One of my personal favorites is Professor Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States. It knocked my socks off when I read it in college. It’s a doorstop, but you’ll keep picking it up, considering it, and bringing it up in conversation.
#29 | To Support Writers, Journalists, and Print Media
“The quality of democracy and the quality of journalism are deeply entwined.” — Bill Moyers
# 30 | To Encourage & Preserve Democracy
“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” — Ray Bradbury, author of Fahrenheit 451
# 31 | Be Part of a Community of Lifelong Learners
In researching this article, I came across this gem from the Calgary Public Library in Canada:
The Calgary Public Library is spot-on. Libraries and community are as old a cultural institution as the Library of Alexandria. Once you start developing your mind with reading, you will scarcely find a more exciting place to be than a good library, be it public or at a College or University.
Reading is about personal evolution, but it also incorporates a public sharing, a unity in diversity of perspectives and experiences. And through that unity-in-diversity, we share in the (r)evolution of the world… our co-created world.
— David Rainoshek, MA
# 32 | Young Readers are the Foundation of a Great Society
If only every teacher would share the scene above (from Detachment, 2012) with their students…
One my my mentors in high school — the parent of a friend — owned the entire Great Books of the Western World series and made it her goal to read it from end to end. Last time I touched in, she was still reading it.
The fact that the Great Books existed, and that I could access those writers and their thoughts collected from thousands of years (many of which I have) was one of the most inspiring things to my young mind . At that time I hated reading because of the overuse of testing on the inane details of books in high school lit classes (multiple-choice tests and daily quizzes just sucked the life and purpose right out of reading for me). But knowledge of that series (photo above) stayed with me until my mind was lit on fire by Malcolm X in his Autobiography, referenced above.
As a young person, I needed reading to be a post-conventional, outside-of-the-box, evolutionary, revolutionary act that would help me craft myself into a better person — a more loving and significant person — and in turn help me to understand and provide solutions for the increasingly complex and intractable challenges of our times.
A Great Society is not merely made from automatons, people who follow directions well, and live inside the boundaries, maintaining the status quo and stasis. A Great society is in motion… evolutionary motion. It is driven to greater versions of itself. It has directionality, is pushed forth and created forth by visionaries who read, think, converse, collaborate, and create beyond the conventions and what is handed to them at the present. A Great Society is made up of students who can objectify and criticize the status quo forward into new stages, new movements, new constructive and life-affirming Revolutions.
Reading — and reading a great deal — provides us with the history, perspectives, and courage to dream and create a Greater Society. That is a worldspace — a vantage point from which to read that all students have the right to inherit as part of their education. This brings us to our final, all-inclusive, integrally-orchestrated reason of Reasons to read…
# 33 | AND FINALLY, Because Reading is a Revolutionary Act…
If you are: Autotelic; Autodidactic; developing skills for something larger than yourself; seeking a greater self-awareness; reading to lead; doing intellectual cross-training and saturation-learning; becoming more hypercognizant; acquiring knowledge as power for good; increasing your sex appeal by developing your mind; reading to vicariously experience more than otherwise humanly possible; developing your wit; a master of stress reduction and deep sleep; increasing your eloquence and memory with each passing day; growing in empathy; encouraging others to read; consciously improving your reading skills with no upper limit; avoiding commercials and unplugging for your own sanity, clarity of thought and peace of mind; accessing wisdom throughout recorded time; cultivating originality; freely educating yourself; deepening your grasp and perspectives on history from a wide range of sources; supporting writers and journalism; encouraging the evolution of democracy through education and free exchange of perspectives; participating in a local or global community of lifelong learners; encouraging our youth to read as the foundation and future of a Great Society…
Then YOU are a (R)EVOLUTIONARY. You make the world not just revolve, but evolve.
When you do these things (and reading supercharges them) by definition you are: post-conventional, post-rational, and beyond being an automaton that marches to the beat of someone else’s drum.
And for that, I salute you. Thank you for being, encouraging, creating, and evolving forth the best of what it means to be human: alive, passionate, strong, flexible, compassionate, beautiful, antifragile, evolutionary.
With love, David Rainoshek, MA
David Rainoshek, MA is a regular contributor here on Medium. If you liked what you read, you may also like these Medium articles:
How Facebook is Altering Your Mind
The HyperLearning Lens: Steve Jobs: Developing Genius
HyperLearning: It’s Here
David Rainoshek also writes “The Book of the Day” here on Medium.
