I started a book yesterday titled, “Why Read” by Will Self.
I’ve read a few books by him and while I can’t say they are my favorites or that I even recommend them whole heartedly to the uninitiated, I do think he says some very deep things.
The Art of Reading a very fine one. One that requires silence about you and a deep absorption of your being. Things that are not very fashionable these days and for which our modern environment is not easily geared. Whether it is your phone, spouse, children, friends, work colleagues, the next episode of whatever you are watching, there are constant interruptions.
The Art of Writing is magnitudes more difficult. Whatever reading demands of you, writing will more or less will take your soul and then some. Even this simple blog is taxing enough that I feel that not much else if possible once I engage in it. I find it very hard to find typos and other grammatical errors, no matter how hard I try, for example. After pushing the publish button, however, they suddenly bloom into being. It’s Sakura Season!
Constant requests for writing shorter and short texts, means that I have had to try and hone my skills in succinctness, to get to the point as economically as possible. In short, to become a poet.
So why write and further more why read, and by that I mean, read well, read widely and with depth?
The answer is simple but its fruits are long for the harvest. Even now, 20 years after first seriously embarking on this adventure I am only able to subtly notice the effects. The cognitive limitations of others, their inexperience with the multiple modalities of thinking. Their inability to hold more than two contradictory thoughts at the same time. Their lack of empathy to so called enemies. Their supplication to authority. Unctuous in servility. Their lack of attention spans. Fleeting at best. Vacant at worst.
Perhaps you might want to avoid that. I can’t say it is easy or quick or painless. I can’t say that I’m even any good at it,
but intuition tells me it is the right thing to pursue.
And That’s,
The Vikid Truth
Go one, try to make one measly writer happy and hit that subscription button…
Reading broadens the mind and writing refines one’s thinking. If everyone on the planet did these two then I’m sure it would resolve many of our conflicts
Cognitive limitation, unwillingness to consider the possibility of multiple and contradictory truths, reacting to opposition as an enemy action, failure to question authority, inability to finish what you start are all taught. Our condition is the result of our education.
Simply put, no one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. And they certainly aren't going to tell you this is what they were always intending.