We are desperate for connection. What would then explain the ridicolous amount of time we spend in social media, talking about others lifes or even watching invented ones in series... there are also other desperate intends of connection, such as drugs, porn and other behaviours we know but refuse to talk about...
Yet my point is that in this time of social distancing, physical constraints, and lack of exotic traveling or partying... we may be leaving the potential of our minds unused...We may even worse forget a spot in our house full of wise friends and their unforgetable stories...your bookshelf.
Reading a book or journal takes, consistency, time and concentration. It is no surprise that reading is not on the rise, and very likely declining, as our attention span is deteriorating and consuming culture seems a luxury, rather than a necessity. Productivity and efficiency, taken too seriously, make reading a tedious and apparently baroque activity...
The thing is, that creating, spreading and cultivating culture is critical to our democracies, our hapiness and even the meaning of life. The world is full of amazing stories, unsolved problems... that cannot we wrapped and packed in a few characters or a picture, because they require deep creative work.
You may consider me as a romantic, scaping the rush of life from cafe to cafe as I do from a book to the other. You are not wrong at all, but my claim is, that not reading books is a symptom that we are not dedicating time to deep learning, deep thinking, and simply to our growth as human beings.
The world is not getting any simpler, despite what makes live good did not change at all, and as the economicus world spins faster and faster from crisis to crisis, or it seems so, the biggest challenges of this century will require hollistic and long term thinking, which requires generalists and great planners, leaving out our urgency to be busy.
Learning is a misterious process, that under the sparse distribution of talent, require monolitic dedication, patience and density. It is surprising that in a age where the new or the young is on the top of our attention, learning and study is not seen as a way to bring a continuous methamorphosis to our being, a constant shapping towards a better and newer self.
I am not sure if bookstores will stay as they are for very long, whether is from digitalization, or just because there is no interest, whatever the format of the text is. My wish is that, whether in a podcast, a book, a journal, a walk, a meditation...we cultivate time for us, learning something of what we are or could be, or just getting to know the ideas and feelings of amazing humans out there.
If you ever want to have a great conversation, with the greatest and most wonderful humans on history, whether they are alive or death, they will patiently wait for you in your bookshelf.
May you become fully inspired, whatever the format
May we make viral, our scientific discoveries and human contributions
May our houses remain with a bookself full of incredible ideas and stories
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