On average I’ve read about 10 hours a week since I was five years old. Some weeks more, some weeks less.
That’s 23,400 hours of reading.
That’s about 11 work years (the average person works 2000 hours a year).
I could’ve done something with my life in that time. I could’ve spent those 23,400 hours, at the very least, as a fireman and saved lives.
So, in order to justify this blatant abuse of the precious life we were intended to live, I need to come up with some reasons to say why reading is good.
HERE:
A) YOU’RE A PSYCHO VAMPIRE
When you read a book, in just 3–10 hours, you absorb the entire life of the ego-maniac who thought he was important enough to write a book.
You suck in his life, learn from it, spit out the pseudo-intellectual vomit that makes up the rest.
Now you’re one life ahead of everyone else. Repeat.
B) YOU’RE INSECURE SO YOU WANT TO BE BETTER THAN EVERYONE
Want to crush your brother-in-law in status? Read a book about how to play better tennis/golf/Nascar racing whatever he is into.
Books are great virtual mentors. Want to get rich? Read five books about Warren Buffett.
Want to win trivia games? Read all sorts of books about the Civil War.
Want to argue economics with someone just to prove how smart you were? Read a textbook and pretend to know about Keynesian economics.
Books are a great way to get status over other people since 99.999% of the people I know can’t finish even a single book per year.
C) YOU’RE AN EGOMANIAC
The best way to write better is to read better.
If someone just sits down and writes an article or book and thinks it should be good because they have “talent” then they are idiots.
It’s really hard to write well.
I feel like eye-vomiting when I read most people’s articles or books.
The best way to write better is to read lots of good books and then spend thousands of hours writing.
But start with the good books. Who is good? Who knows.
Always before I write, I read for an hour or so to get my brain all ready to write.
And the only reasons someone writes is because they think they have something important to say. Hence the ego-maniac part.
There’s seven billion people on the planet. Why should people listen to you?
But they will if you fool them into it by good writing. And you get good by reading.
D) YOU HATE YOUR LIFE
When I hate my life, I often read thrillers, science fiction, or other page-turners (yes, even romance).
Maybe I’m unhappy in my job. Or I have no friends. Or my relationship is awful.
Reading is like practice for the good life I know I DESERVE to live.
It’s a safe way to practice. Nobody gets hurt but you get absorbed into the world of the book almost as if you were really alive there.
It’s voluntary schizophrenia.
Reading is not natural.
We did not evolve to read squiggly black lines on a piece of paper.
For one thing: our genes are the same as human being 250,000 years ago.
Human beings didn’t have papers or word processors or even typewriters then. They didn’t even have pens.
So our eyes and brains are not supposed to handle reading.
The only people who read are ego-maniac, voluntary schizophrenics who want status over others.
They have to be or why would they subject their eyes to such torture.
Imagine being in a typical big bookstore. About 10,000 books. 9,999 of them are awful.
A bookstore is the warehouse of evil.
And most books are envelopes of souls.
Don’t sell your life by slipping into the wonderland of books.
Unless you really have to.
——
p.s. In all ten Star Wars movies I have never once seen Yoda (or anyone, for that matter) read. Nobody reads in other galaxies! Shame on me once!