BRINGING BACK THE LOST ART OF
READING
Mario D’Couto
According to some studies done, the
average person watches something like twenty hours of television a week and
spends nearly five hours a day on their phone. It seems as though almost nobody
reads that much. While there are many paths to wisdom, nearly every one of them
runs through books. Can you think of any truly wise person who does not read? Can
you think of anyone you know who reads a lot and does not wish they read even
more? Sure enough, wisdom can be got through experience as experience can be a
powerful teacher for those who are docile to its teachings but the value of
reading and the thirst for knowledge cannot be underestimated.
It may seem as though reading is
like some sort of passive activity yet it is anything but passive. Real reading
when pursued with the intent of drawing knowledge takes a lot of work, a work
that’s worth it. Through reading, you are communicating with the great men and
women from around the world, both from the past and the present. The plight is
that many people are not taught how to read, how to actually extract something
usable from the books available to them nor are they empowered as readers to
quit books that suck, to disagree with a book or to dive into the rabbit hole
of knowledge to master a topic.
Because reading is a conversation,
great readers don’t read passively. They put books through the wringer; they
put the author on trial. They ask questions, they talk back and they don’t just
read occasionally, but constantly, devouring fiction and non – fiction alike,
philosophy and history, memoirs and biography, poetry and prose. Some examples
of this include Montaigne whose beloved copy of Lucretius survives with all his
notes or John Adams who wrote something like twelve thousand words of notes and
comments in the books that he read. The fact of the matter is that even though
the great men and women of the past are dead and gone, their voices still
continue to reach out, collapsing centuries and shattering barriers, travelling
across time and space and the vast range of perspectives. Think about how many
people lived before you; think of the immensity of their lives, what they said,
what they heard, what they did. Think of them sitting at their desk, struggling
to articulate their experiences for others. Think of the historians,
philosophers and wise people who dedicated their whole careers to figuring out
how and why certain events unfolded, why and how individuals made fateful
decisions. Think of all the books they had read just to create a single,
distilled volume published.
Most people crib about not having
the time to read but that’s far from the truth. We all have time to read. We
just don’t do it enough. When Charles de Gaulle was president of France, he read
two to three books a week and was famous for reading all the annual winners of
the literary prizes. As secretary of defense, General James Mattis blocked out
an hour each day for ‘lunch/reading time’, having previously managed to
read the Stoics and hundreds of other books while actively fighting in a war. Napoleon
took 125 books with him during his invasion of Egypt. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
managed to read “Mein Kampf” in German in 1933, shortly after becoming
president, in the midst of a ceaseless and overwhelming economic crisis. Books
definitely have immense value. Unfortunately, many of us have failed to realize
it’s worth or to at least make a conscious effort to pursue the value of
reading. In this light, it’s worth keeping in mind the advice that the author
Robin Sharma gives as he explains in his book, “The greatness guide”, “Reading
is one of the best disciplines I know of to stay ‘on your game’ and at your
highest. Reading from a great book is really all about having a conversation with
the author. And we become our conversations. Just think tonight, by reading
Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography, ‘My experiment with truth’ over a cup of
coffee, you can get behind this great man’s eyeballs and learn what made him
tick. Want to hang out with Madonna? Grab her book. Same for Jack Welch, Mother
Teresa, Bill Gates, Salvador Dali or the Dalai Lama. The hands that puts down a
great book will never be the same as Oliver Windell Holmes observed, ‘A
mind once stretched by a new idea can never return to its original dimension’.
When
I was growing up, my father once told me, ‘Cut back on your rent or cut back
on what you spend on food but never worry about investing money in a good book’.
That powerful thought has accompanied me through life. His philosophy was that
all it takes is one idea discovered in a single book to lift you to a whole new
level and revolutionize the way you see the world. And so our home was filled
with books. And now I try to devote at least an hour a day to reading. That
habit alone has transformed me. Thank you, dad.
Perhaps
my greatest gift to my children when I die will be my library. I have books on
leadership, relationships, business, philosophy, wellness, spirituality, great
lives and many of my other favoured topics in it. Many of these I’ve picked up
in bookshops from across the planet when I travel on business. These books have
shaped my thinking. They have formed my personal philosophy. They have made me
the man I am. To me, my books are priceless.
The
old expression is true, ‘Knowing
how to read and not reading is about the same as not knowing how to read.’ Make
the time to read something good each day. Fill your mind with big ideas and
dazzling thoughts. Use books to flood your soul with hope and inspiration. And
remember, if you want to lead, you really need to read. Oh, and if you like me
– have the habit of buying more books than you can possibly read, don’t feel
guilty – you’re building your library. And that’s a beautiful thing.”
Perhaps, it is time to rethink our
priorities and to make a conscious effort to devote a fixed time to read. The
fact of the matter is that life is too short and we don’t have all the time and
resources to understand how the world works ourselves but through reading, it shortens
the process. Reading is a bit like being mentored by the author, about understanding
how the world works from his or her perspective and the more perspectives you
have (through reading a wide variety from different disciplines as much as
possible), the better you are equipped to face life and its challenges. What’s
more, the information you have gained through reading can help you to mentor
someone else as well as it is said that the best way to learn something is to
teach it to someone else. God did not put us on this planet to merely occupy
space; a stone occupies space, a rock or a boulder occupies space. He created
us to thrive. Life is too multifaced for it to be ignored and reading is what
can help ignite that spark to live meaningfully and purposefully, thus enabling
us to thrive. God love you! Stay blessed!
