Why Read?

As a rule, I don’t give advice. I simply share my experience and let it go at that. So, whenever I’m asked the question Why read? I answer for myself. And, since the answer is never exactly the same, the one offered today goes something like this. 

I read to live. Specifically, I read to live in a larger world, intellectually, socially, and morally. To do that requires I read real books. And, though I'll talk more about that in my next entry, before continuing to answer the question Why read? it’s only fair that I explain briefly what is meant by real books. 

The short answer is, a real book, or a great book, is what is more commonly known as a classic, the best of its kind. A real book deserves to be read again, and again. Even if I don’t have the time, which is often the case, I know that there’s a lot going on.

What is meant by a lot going on?

A real book is full of thoughts and feelings, situations and problems and people. And those thoughts and feelings are responses to particular situations, and the problems and people found in them. Those people might be real, as in history or biography, or they might be imagined, as in poetry and literature. 

But even in the case of imaginative literature, a real book, which, of course, includes poetry and plays, is realer than real. To name a few of my favorites from both literature and history, there's Hamlet, Tristram Shandy, Remembrance Of Things Past, History of Friedrich II of Prussia by Carlyle, Browning's The Ring and The Book, Nietzsche's Zarathrustra, and Joyce’s Ulysses. The characters found in such books have a vividness that few of us have when we try to communicate with others, or ourselves.

A real book is a world unto itself. It’s similar to and different from the world in our heads. But, it’s exactly because of this fullness that it might be hard to get in to, at least at first. That should come as no surprise. After all, any great book is a work of genius. And no work of genius is going to yield its cargo on demand. Only the weak-minded want something for nothing.*

* A lot of that going on these days. In fact, it's part of the explanation for the civilizational collapse we're living through right now. It's not at all uncommon in history for the weak-minded to hold positions of power. And when, as is the case today, the weak-minded and their even weaker-minded proxies do occupy positions of power, civilizational collapse isn't just inevitable, it's guaranteed.

It’s this element of something wanted, genius, with its superior sense of structure and profound emotional depth, its unflinching and courageous drive toward reality, that makes a great book an escape from reality that takes one to a deeper reality. In this deeper reality we see the attributes of wisdom in action. If you have any life in you it's impossible not to be moved by great art.

Note:That's why the truly evil want to destroy art and not just art. Because that's exactly what evil is, the spirit that denies value. Two favorite targets of the truly evil being art and children. For the link on children see 1:57 to 2:53.

By being an escape from reality that takes us to a deeper reality, a great book is a paradox that doesn’t abide by shallow and narrow-minded explanations masquerading as the final truth. All sorrow is the lust for finality. But reading keeps us thinking. What do they keep us thinking about? Great books keep us thinking about life itself and our respones to that life, as we live it and as others have experienced it. It's exactly this shared experience with the past that helps us see in the present that no response to life can ever be perfect and final. This explains why believers in salvation systems - better known as fanatics - don't want us reading great books. It also explains why their response to great books is limited to childish ad hominem attacks against the writers, their culture and the civilization that produced those writers, who in turn helped continue to build that civilization through their work.

Note: A civilizaiton that today's hostile elite and their culture of complaint, in short, Identity Politics and Cancel Culture, has benefitted from but doesn't understand and so, can neither manage or hold on to - and for a reason. Civilization isn't something you hold on to, it's something you uphold. And you certainly can't uphold something you don't understand, anymore than you can hold on to something by complaining about it. The result? Identity Politics has turned a once great country into a looted and burned down Dollar Store now occupied by a bunch of addicts strung out on a drug far worse than any opiod - the drug of mood-altering through self-righteousness, or, virtue signalling.

Because, by thinking about what we're reading, we might question the salvation system. Of course! So, for me, learning to become a good reader is both inspiring and humbling, in part, because it helps resuce me from the dangers of conformity and from the temptations of moral pomposity (which, of course, is a temptation Identity Politics can't resist at all). It's a process of self-overcoming that helps me answer the question Why read?

But, above all, it also helps me to answer the two most important questions in the world, What is mankind? and Who am I? 

Reading helps me face my limitations. But, since I bring myself to the book, because reading it is a decision I make, because picking the book up and reading it is an action I take each time I read, and because I'm committed to understanding as best I can what the book has to teach, in short, because I am willing to do the work, it allows me to see not just what I can’t do, but what I can do, because I want to do it, because it’s important to me, because I couldn’t live without experiencing the joy of reading.

So, I don’t just read to live. I read to live to the full. I read so as to live in reality, the one I find myself in and the one I create. The poet’s words what we half create, And what perceive come irresistibly to mind. Reading real books, as opposed to a newspaper on a subway, requires a lot more social protection and psychic insulation. It requires time and space so I can drop my guard and be surprised. Reading great books calls for reflective thought, not automatic belief. It calls for contemplation, consideration, and meditation, not compulsive fault-finding.

Note: In other words, reading real books has nothing to do with flying off the handle with a knee-jerk reaction. It has nothing to do with the kind of finger-pointing, fault-finding, and vindictive hysteria, so common among that legion of the lost, those self-righteous narcissistic materialists that fill the ranks of Identity Politics. And it definitely has nothing at all to do with that ignorant mob of brainsoiled, unreflective thinkers when they arrogantly conflate their shallow and narrow-minded interpretations and evaluations of these books (ie; their CliffsNotes) with absolute truth, in spite of the fact that they have yet to come up with a general theory of interpretation or even a theory of evaluation.

But such reading is also an invitation to experience a range of emotions. For example, alone in a quiet room with a great book that moves me deeply, I can allow myself to either have a powerful emotional response, or, I can challenge myself to control my emotions if I think I need to, or, I can have a more familiar response that I enjoy having whenever I read.

It's this kind of reading that encourages and stimulates learning, change, and growth. It is empowering exactly because the gift can not be given, it has to be earned. And certainly one way of earning a gift is to do the work necessary to keep it. Reading is the gift you give to yourself. Reading real books also causes the same intellectual tension, psychological disorientation, and emotional disturbance experienced in any problem-solving activity in any situation. That’s why most people don’t read real books. That’s why most people, as Bertrand Russell once said, would rather die than think. It’s why most of us are bad problem solvers. Something that a glance at our current social crisis and our crisis in leadership (same thing) makes perfectly obvious. 

It’s the same old story of confirmation bias. Since changing our way of thinking causes tension, disorientation, and disturbance, many people rarely work past this challenge and move toward learning, change and growth. Instead, they prefer to confirm what they already believe and simply call that "the truth." Thereby depriving themselves of the single greatest by-product of all learning, change, and growth - a genuine and lasting happiness. 

Note: It's the reason many would rather tell each other lies about race than the truth about the family.

It’s the theme of all marriages that begin when the honeymoon is over. If you want to see a happy marriage look at two people who can learn, change, and grow - together. Many answers could be offered to the question Why read? So, perhaps it would be better to end with a memory that came to mind while writing this entry.

Way back when, while with a friend and his three year old son walking near a strawberry patch, my friend started talking about a particular writer and one of his books. This led to the beginning of a conversation about books in general and how we wished we had more time to read. I then watched my friend watching his son, carefully, as he wandered closer to the strawberry patch, transfixed and longing to be nearer to them, to touch them. In short, to experience them, to know them for himself. Since his son’s wandering interrupted the talk we had just started (actually, it was the other way around), my friend turned to me and smiled apologetically as if to excuse himself from the conversation and look after his boy. It was a nice moment. As his son wandered further, my friend threw his head back and laughed through a proud smile, turned to me and said, Gotta go, and went to get his son as he disappeared from view. When he brought him back, I couldn't help but see the connection between the son's curiosity and the father's passion for knowledge, between the son's excitement for that strawberry and his father's enthusiasm for books. Maybe those strawberries will become books for him too one day. Knowing his father, they probably will, and for all the right reasons. The moment reminded me of why I love to read.

I read to live. And there is no life without wonder and no wonder without the opportunity to wander, to explore, like a child in a strawberry patch. So, I read to satisfy the need to wonder and the desire to wander, to explore and possess something that is mine, something I can share with someone else, a thought, a feeling, an idea, an experience. Life just doesn’t seem to be real until we share our life with others, and then it becomes realer than real as we come into our own and become who we are with them.

Just as life became realer than real for me, for a moment, when my friend’s son offered me his prized possession, his first strawberry, making it one of my most prized possessions. Of course, the moment didn't last long. But the memory of it will last forever. The wisdom of children. That dear boy seemed to know exactly what he was doing. You could see it in his eyes and on his smiling face. He just couldn’t explain it, that's all. But that will come later. And when it does it will be aided by reading.

Children are everything. Because childhood is when and where it all begins. Remembering the words The Child is the father of the Man helped me understand that, again, as my friend’s son gave me the gift of his wonder and wisdom in the form of a single strawberry that he had just picked while walking with his father.

Speaking of wisdom and the fact that nothing is real until it's shared with someone else, the walk with my friend and his son made me think of my wife and the gift that is our marriage. It made me think of her and how loving she is with me, how gracious she is with her time, when she listens to me talk about the books I'm reading and what they mean to me and why.

It reminded me that I’m loved and not alone. But, it reminded me of something far more important. It reminded me that I can't keep this gift of love unless I return it. That's how it's earned. There are many ways one can love others. And you can't do that unless you love yourself. But, since we are a We before we're an I, if we weren't loved as children, if we weren't valued for who we are, and way too many of us were not, then we'll have to learn to love ourselves as adults. There's just no other way. And we can't learn that if we don't love to read. So, I read to live, and I live to love.

How could I not be grateful for my life?

Concluding Remarks

B.F. Skinner once said, We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Anyone interested in understanding why B. F. Skinner was such a bad scientist, a bad philosopher, a bad moralist and a mediocre wannabe writer need look no further than this quote. What a midwit!

Why couldn't we teach both?

More importantly, why wouldn't we teach both?

The greater the book the greater the reading. The deeper the thoughts and feelings found in the book we're reading, the deeper the love of reading, the more we learn to love. Who wouldn't want to be a part of something that helps you learn to love?

The mediocre. That's who. Especially credentialed mediocrity like B. F. Skinner, or better yet, B.S. Skinner. When the mediocre accept themselves, that's acceptable. But when they don't, when they put on airs, when they inflate themselves, when they become pretentious and dishonest out of insecurity, resentment and a plebian knee-jerk rejection of excellence, in short, when philistines becomes cultural philistines, that is truly deplorable.

Them calling others deplorable is a clear cut case of projection.

Learning how to read a great book from a teacher who loves to read and loves to teach is an experience you don't want to miss.

Which is why the mediocre want to deprive you of that experience by cancelling great books for their Whiteness. Please.

There's so much going on when great teachers of wide-learning and eager students willing to learn meet over a book. If we let it happen, it will change our lives forever and for the better and in so many ways. If, for whatever reason, no teacher is available and you decide to read a great book on your own, take comfort in the fact that what you're doing is a great thing, something difficult (as is all genuine and lasting learning, change and growth), but something very much worthy of your time and attention. To find out more about what I mean, join me in my next entry when I'll offer an answer to the question What Is A Real Book?