READING
Why I Don’t Like Reading Biographies of Successful People
If we can even agree on what success means in the first place
Biography is a form of storytelling.
Bio comes from the Greek word “bios” meaning life + graphy again comes from the Greek word “graphia” meaning writing, making its literal meaning =
LifeWriting
It’s not very far from its implied meaning.
Biography is a detailed account of a person’s life. Certain excerpts from someone’s lifetime are depicted through events that are chosen to be highlighted, most commonly in a chronological manner.
They can be written by a third person or by the person themselves, making it an autobiography.
Like any form of storytelling, biographies too reduce reality to consumable bits.
But that’s true to any other literature as well.
And what can possibly be so wrong about wanting to learn about the story of someone you admire or despise or simply find important enough to learn about?
Nothing.
There is nothing wrong with reading biographies. I just simply don’t like them and here is why:
1 — They Never Show the Complete Picture
Biographies are like more detailed Social Media profiles. They pick and leave stories in accordance to how they serve the narrative of the author. They don’t usually give you a full account of what someone’s life has been like.
For example, if the person who is being written about has done a heroic act, like let’s say she has saved a little kitten who couldn’t get back from the tree, the story will fit itself in a way to explain the heroic act in the most logical way possible.
The person’s whole life story will be analysed and filtered with the purpose of explaining the heroic act.
It may go something like this.
“Stella has always loved kittens ever since she was a little girl.”
The author might find a photo of Stella with a kitten from her childhood to use this as evidence.
“She has always cared for animals’ safety.”
A quote from a childhood friend proves how she always volunteered to feed the stray cats on the street.
There we have our story. Stella has always loved and cared for cats, so that explains why she would do such a heroic act and save the little kitten from the tree.
The reality though might be something like this. As Stella was in a hurry to go to her meeting, her little daughter kept crying. She saw how the little kitten got on the tree and couldn’t get back down. Stella looks at the cat, thinks it’s bad but she really has to go. She calls the firefighters but they won’t be there before an hour. Her daughter refuses to move, stomps stubbornly on the ground and cries as loud as possible demanding that the kitten is rescued. Tired of the whole crying and not wanting to miss her very important meeting, Stella takes off her shoes and climbs to the tree to save the little kitten.
As you can see in this very simplified attempt of a fictional story, the narrator doesn’t capture the reality as it fully is.
2- There is No Single Recipe to Success
Now that we know that only a fraction of the story of an event, let alone someone’s lifetime can be captured, we can see why this bit won’t help us with our goals.
Imagine that for you the most heroic act on earth is to save a kitten from a tree and you would love to do that one day. You see the biography of Stella. It reads: “The Hero Mommy: Biography of a Kitten-Saver Stella.”
You think that if you read Stella’s biography, you might also one day save a kitten and be a hero. Easy. Now you just have to analyse her entire life and be more like her.
The book shows you some of the habits Stella has:
She wakes up every day at 5am
She eats a plant-based diet
She draws one panda illustration a day
There you go, you have your recipe to success. Now you just have to get into these amazing, not at all random habits that Stella has — so you can be more like her and save a kitten one day.
But we all know that the reason Stella saved the kitten was the specific circumstances she was in that day. Sure, she also had agency and decided to do what she has done. But if the opportunity never showed, she would have never saved a kitten. Meaning if her daughter hasn’t been watching the kitten as it climbed and got stranded on the tree, if she didn’t insist that the kitten was rescued and if Stella had enough time to wait for the firefighters she might have never rescued the kitten.
Since you never possibly can recreate and replicate the exact scenario, getting into Stella’s habits is not going to bring you to your goal.
3- Biographies, like Self-Help Books, Sell You a Promise They Can’t Deliver
Biographies don’t usually state as openly as the Self-Help books that they have the recipe for your success.
But it’s implied:
Do you have a goal? Then have a role model, read about their life and you’ll get there.
The account of someone’s life is written once they are already successful. So finding out the reasons behind that person’s success retrospectively is a very convenient task.
Convenient in the sense that you don’t have to have strong cause-and-effect links or analytical models to see if certain events have led to the person’s success or not. The person is successful, so the idea of the book sells itself.
In reality though, there is so much randomness, coincidence or luck that contributes to the way things are — and this is not interesting for biographies. What’s important is understanding the person behind the success.
4- Biographies Usually Serve a Purpose
It might be trying to convince you of the significance of a certain someone. Let’s say that after Stella’s heroic act, there was a new group formed in the neighbourhood: KittenHeros. KittenHeros have grown exponentially over the years and are now recruiting for further kitten savers. As part of their recruitment strategy, they have published the biography of Stella — their master mind. You read about Stella’s life and you want to be more like her, so you sign up for the KittenHeros.
5- Nobody is Successful Alone
As we have seen in Stella’s case, a big factor behind her success was her daughters persistence and yet she plays little to no role in the biography. Real biographies are often this way too. They over-emphasize the agency and the strength of one person while often not acknowledging the role of all the other people who helped the main person to get there.
7- Low Entertainment Value
They are mostly boring. Let’s admit it: no single person is ever that exciting to read about.
Even Alexander the Great, one of the people in history whose young life was full of events and adventure, is alone not that interesting to read about. So think about how fascinating lives of modern politicians, successful personalities can possibly be.
All this being said, I am not going to skip on a beautifully written book just because it’s in the genre of biography. I am just cautious to not take what’s written as facts and usually don’t find them entertaining. I would much rather read a book that is inspired by a real life person but acknowledges that most of what’s written is fiction — since that’s at least truthful and more likely to be entertaining.
