I’ve Been Reading Fewer Writers
When I was young, my parents told me to hang out with the smartest kids.
Unfortunately, by “smart” they meant the kids that got the best grades. I realised that that’s not the same thing when I joined the workforce after my postgrad. Better late than never.
That’s not the point of this article, though — my parents were careful because kids are “sponges.” They inadvertently and indiscriminately absorb habits, mannerisms, opinions, behaviours, values, attitudes, and beliefs from their environment.
Fun fact — I’m still a Manchester United fan despite not only never having been to Manchester but not knowing who plays for them now and not watching any of their matches over the last ten years.
Why? Because kids in my school were fans and I wanted to fit in.
Kids pick up stupid things, not necessarily the “good” ones. Benign stuff like sports team affiliations is nothing compared to the actual pernicious stuff we may have picked up as kids and aren’t even aware of.
Raising children is not easy.
And neither is raising adults.
We like to think that we’re “grown-up” — mature, smart, knowledgeable, independent, self-sufficient, responsible, reliable, decisive, confident, and in control of our lives.
But when we look beneath this mirage of self, we find that adults are not that dissimilar to kids. Adults are sponges too.
Kids are just extra-absorbent super sponges that could clean up a messy kitchen in less time than it takes to have them.
Adults learn from their surroundings. We adapt, we grow, we change.
Think back to how your life was pre-COVID compared to now. I bet there are so many differences in your behavioural patterns that you didn’t even take note of — they just subtly happened in the background like that pesky Windows Update but without any notice to restart your computer.
A great example is mobile phones. Thirty years ago, they were fringe devices. Twenty years ago, people used them only when needed. Ten years ago, people started giving smartphones a chance. Now, more people are on their phones than spending time with others in the real world.
People adapt. People change. My parents have gone from ridiculing me for using Myspace/Hi5/Orkut (yes, I’m old) to spending more time on social media than me.
And that takes me to my point. Even in our adulthood, we still need to be careful about whom we:
- work with,
- hangout with,
- have relationships with,
And. You guessed it. Read.
At its essence, reading someone is not that different from hearing them speak. That’s why a common writing advice is to “write as you speak” (see David Ogilvy’s memo) — the point is to make it seem like a conversation.
Just an asynchronous one-sided conversation. I write this now and I hope you read this in the coming days at your own leisure but please do respond! One-sided conversations are boring.
But this is a conversation just the same — I’m making an opinion and want to share that with you.
Reading, real active reading, is a conversation too and we must be careful about whom we read.
So I’ve become super selective about my reading — on social media, books, and here. I only read writers who I know will be thought-provoking or those who go against my views. From whom I can learn.
I was far more indiscriminate earlier but I realised that I have much less freedom of thought than I thought I did. Weird, huh?
And that’s my advice to you too — be selective in your human interactions (asynchronous or otherwise) and double down on the ones that matter.
Re-reading your favourite books five times is better than reading five different authors. You, like me, are a sponge. Absorb the right material.
