I read most of the time. Why I feel nothing changes?
Back to the days of our parents, when someone needed an information or had an idea to develop, they had to use a search engine that not so much people are fond of nowadays. It’s called a library. And sometimes, they couldn’t find the books they were searching for, or ended up falling in a « rabbit hole », a misleading book.
Nowadays, we are blessed with instant information: forums, blogs, News websites, RSS feed…I found myself spending a lot of time reading blogs and articles, always when I finish an article, there is another one with an interesting title. I felt like I was consuming knowledge that will never quench my thirst. When I find an article, I say “I might need it in the future”. Then read it and hoping it will come handy. Just like a squirrel gathering more nuts to stack them. I’ve begun to feel that all this information I’ve been consuming had no real impact on my life. It made me ask “does reading a high amount of things is enough to acquire learning?” What am I missing?
What we put into our body, whether be food or information, is a part of our development, but it is not enough. We need to exercise and practice those skills. It is not only by eating healthy food that we become athletes. There is a next important step that must follow : practice and experimenting. Aristotle said in his book, Nichomachean Ethics : “but the virtues we get by first exercising them, as also happens in the case of the arts as well. For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them, e.g. men become builders by building and lyreplayers by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts.”
Let’s imagine that a country has a consumption: production ratio. Its citizen produce goods and then consume it. When the C:P ratio is much more heavily favored in the production side, this country thrives economically and begins to export its material. But when C:P ratio is leaned to the consumption side, crises begin to arise and more serious problems emerge with its citizen.
Most successful people are inclined more toward production than consumption. They are out there proving a value to society by making art, projects, and businesses. They are the ones who are writing books and make civilizations prosper. In short, they take action. Nobody remembered the person who have read a thousand books. Reading in order to create something is the right thing to do. But reading for the sake of reading is just a loop that will lead nowhere.
We’ve created more data in the last ten years than in all of human History. If you have all information at your fingertips, can you build a rocket that will take off to Mars? Of course not. Data is not information, information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom.
When I was just consuming, I was just jumping from one article to another, scrolling my newsfeed. Sometimes, I stumble on something interesting to know, without questioning if it is true or not, then go the next one. I was just reading for the sake of reading. you become information-obese. I’ve acquired too much information without applying them, or without « burning » them like calories. That’s why I’ve begun to watch my C :P ratio by focusing more on the tasks that will produce a value outward and reading only the things that has real impact. I noticed that books have a better quality content than blogs because books are written with more research and attention, and they represent the gist of an author’s life.
There is a popular belief that says it doesn’t matter what you read, it will come later to benefit you, that more information = better. It’s totally false, like junk eating exists, junk reading exists also. Junk food give little nutrients and contains a high amount of empty calories. It does make you feel full without getting the necessary nutriments. Junk information also provides the brain with a lot of useless advice and little value. So we have to filter through the huge amount of data and select meticulously what can benefits us or not.
Einstein said “Reading after a certain age diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuit”. There is a balance between reading about that skill, and applying the skill to our own project. The best way to grow and learn is practice, I can explain the rudiments of dance, but in order to dance, you’ll have to dance. By practicing, we will gain a more valuable wisdom: insight. It is the when and the how to use what you’ve learnt. You will learn that not every situation is hitting the nail with a hammer. One of the biggest miracles of the brain is its plasticity. By practicing, new connections between neurons will begin to form and the brain begins to rewire to perform better.
Knowing alone is not enough, you have to feel it in your guts, getting those “aha” moments and epiphanies that will lead you to a clear comprehension.
