Early Morning Essay on Reading vol. I

Reading, or whatever else we find ourselves doing, is only worth it as long as we are learning from it. As long as it is increasing our value as people, human beings. Too often we get caught up on numbers, thinking we should for example read an X number of books in a week, month or year. I say, this attitude, even though it might motivate us to strive for more, is unproductive.

It is only worth to push ourselves in this scenario as long as we are learning from it. It should not be a race, it should not be about reading a number of books, it should be about learning from them. About becoming more knowledgeable. Say one can speed read and retain 80% of the information, is it worth it?

No. Speed reading and other such techniques do not allow us to pause, think, cross reference, look up statistics and sources. We might retain 80% of the knowledge and read a book in half the time, but I would argue that the knowledge we gain from it is a lot less than that, and the problem is that knowledge can’t be measured. It’s not about checking the correct field when asked which character did whatever thing, it’s about retaining it and applying it to our lives.

I vouch for slow reading, I vouch for reading less books if it means you can learn more from them, I vouch for focusing on practical wisdom, and not for how many facts we can spill in a dinner party.