Resolve to not touch a book
New year is the time for resolutions; and ‘reading more books’ is a popular one. So, before anyone makes this resolve and Amazon forbid, stick to it, I want to lay out my arguments for why you should read less or if you can help it, not at all.
Bookish idea
The notion that books are good for you comes from antiqued times when I am sure people also thought that television can be a tool for spreading knowledge! It was atleast the past when printed words were a disruptive idea – that it could disseminate new thoughts to the masses affordably. It was truly a revolutionary technology, but it has frankly become outdated.
Books are an outdated technology that has run its course in the last few centuries
Non-fiction books are too long-windy and sell an ‘idea’ for the most part. But you may say that this helps develop the ability to focus and pay attention – a needed skill in this gadget filled world that is only fit for those with goldfish memories. Yes, but how do we know that this focus is worthy? With everyone having a vested interest and a strong agenda or explaining theories that will be debunked in under a year, maybe watching a few tiktok video pranks may be a lesser waste of precious time.
Fictional benefits
What about fiction – the excellent characters, gripping drama, humour and heart-warming stories? Why would you not want to cosy-up to such a book and settle down with imagination, you argue.
Fiction can surely be enchanting, but only until you start observing reality. When you talk with people you meet (you know, all those moving around, that you glance at when you take your eye off your book in a public place?), the stories they share are truly mind blowing. Their facts are certainly stranger than any fiction I can lay my hands on.
Stories of fellow humans are far more impressive and carries human interest than what you can see in black-on-white
Buying bios
Common people are pedestrian, but aren’t you even closed to reading about extraordinary people? You cannot meet them at the metro station, and you will miss out if you didn’t read biographies, you assert.
I counter that with fiction. Imagine there was Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and all other social media plus online publications during the 19th century. Sepoy mutiny will be surely trending then, and Rajaram Mohan Roy’s Sati abolition posts would have been debated online, with Roy himself replying to the comments.
Basically, in a world where we can interact with Elon Musk and Bill Gates, why would I go for a second-hand account? And it would be childish to expect revelations that were not captured by popular media – which we all agree is hyperactive – to be gleamed from a book?
In a super connected world, there are umpteen opportunities to learn live, rather than from a book, as authors also have hidden agendas or may give theories that get disproved in 18 months
Footnote
Studies show that information shared in smaller bites is better assimilated than downloading a book into one’s brain. And let’s not forget that books were a substitute to hearing lectures, visiting places and just imagining things! All the scorn that book lovers have for other media, unfortunately also applies to book, only no one is seeing through their cover!
Just as certain advice given to us as a child – drink milk – needs to be re-assessed as we grow up, the idea of reading books must be re-evaluated as we mature. Readers don’t make leaders, but listeners and doers do. Your erudition is no more based on who you quote but rather on what you say in unquotes.
Maybe this year, with the benefit of vision 2020, we must unfetter learning from black print on white page and find it in faces, voices and the actions of our fellow living beings.