The Beauty of Books
Photo by Alfons Morales on Unsplash
We often say that we wish we could sit down and have a face-to-face conversation with someone long gone, or even someone still living yet on the other side of the globe. While it’s true that there’s nothing like an intimate in-person interaction, there is something nearly as valuable: reading.
If you’ve ever found yourself confused and wondered how the Dalai Lama would respond in your situation, you can pick up one of his many works and find an answer. Maybe there’s a social struggle happening and you want to understand and empathize more with the oppressed group; Susan B. Anthony and Martin Luther King Jr. are there to help you. One needs to stop viewing books as just pieces of paper with text and start seeing them as guides to wisdom.
The beauty of books is that they allow you to jump into its pages and immerse yourself in its ideas- to put it more accurately, to immerse yourself in the mind of its writer. Books are the product of the thoughts, experiences, struggles, and conclusions of the author. A piece of them is contained within the words of the pages, and I think that’s beautiful.
Even fiction books have their significance; they exercise the imagination of the reader and are crucial to cultivating wonder and creativity. It’s clear to see why they’re popular among children. It’s unfortunate that for whatever reason, whether it’s the educational system or the jest of peers, young readers grow out of this past time and hardly ever pick up another book for the rest of their life. Cover-to-cover books are replaced by 280 character tweets and brief news articles. Even adults claim that they lack the time to read. To that I say that it’s not the time they lack, but rather reading simply isn’t a priority. Keep in mind that they need not actually sit down and read; if they truly are pressed for time, they could always listen to an audiobook on their commute or read a paragraph or two on an e-book on their break.
If you think about it, reading is the closest thing to a superpower that we have. It allows us to time travel, voyage to infinite worlds, get inside the minds of others, expand our own minds, and talk to the dead. It really is a pure conduit for self-actualization.
In most places in the world, books are one of the most accessible sources of knowledge, so do yourself a favor and pay a visit to your nearest library. The dividends are far too great to ignore.
Thanks for reading,
Alan
Additional Resources
Visit my book list for suggestions on some of my favorite titles. Most of what I read centers around self-help and spirituality, but I do occasionally have a fiction title in my rotation.
This video on rediscovering books by one of my absolute favorite creators (coincidentally) contains many of the same points written in this article. I think it’s pretty cool that we independently arrived at the same conclusion.
As with all things, reading takes practice. It may not be the best idea to dive directly into a 500 page book, so start with a shorter and “less academic” book if you want to get started.
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