Some books have literally been life-changing, epic adventures in my life. I wouldn’t be who I am if it weren’t for these books.
But if I’ve read books the way most people read books, I’d probably never have experienced any of that.
Today I discuss my deep love for books, my appreciation for everything they’ve brought into my life, different ways of reading books, and much more.
Transcript:
In our last recording, the last episode, we talked about story, the book, and I picked out that one paragraph where he talks about.
[00:00:08]The love to touch the audience needs to be like the desire of a great writer. And then he’s talking about the capacity of the audience to be touched and open and to feel deeply. And we nerded out on that part and it’s still like that alone. This is on page. I don’t know, 10 of the book. So the very beginning that paragraph alone.
[00:00:30] Has touched me and changed me. Boom. I’ll never forget that that has done. That’s changed the chemistry, my brain that has imprinted on me. Beautiful, beautiful. Today. I kept reading in the book or I was attempting to read, but you know what sucked about it is what was incredibly inconvenient is that every third sentence.
[00:00:55] I wanted to highlight, I cannot read this book fast. I cannot read this book. It slows me down so much. It’s not just a highlighting. So I want to highlight, I want to take notes and I want to contemplate. I’m like, wow, this is so profound. I should think of this for the day. And then I go, right. But it’s just the first sentence I read.
[00:01:22] Let me read a little bit further and I read, and then there’s another. Paragraph. I go, Oh my God, this is also really profound and very different. I should contemplate on this. And then I go wait, but there’s this other thing I wanted to come there played on. And then within two or three pages, I go, maybe I should stop here because I’m missing out on all this brilliance that I’m just passing by too fast.
[00:01:44] So obviously that’s dope. Right? That’s. Just, I mean gold when you read something that’s so well-written so dense in wisdom and not just it’s smart. And it says really intelligent things, but it says things that make you go not, Ooh, I want to tell this to everybody, because this is sort of the test.
[00:02:05] Sometimes I read something quirky or smart and I go, Ooh, I could tweet this. I could tell this to somebody, right. This is a smart little tidbit to share with people to be smart. But this book isn’t like that. Yeah, I read these things and I go, I just want to meditate on it. I just want to stew on this soup and try to understand why is this so true and how can I change my life based on this fact.
[00:02:29] So I feel the same way exactly. You get me. Right. And then, so in P you know, I read three, four, five, six pages. I don’t know a handful of pages. And I stopped. And then I almost got discouraged to the point where thinking, I don’t know if I want to continue reading this book, right? This is too slow. This is slowing me down so much.
[00:02:54] It feels like the only way to do justice is if it’s the only book I’m reading and I’m taking a month off to actually work on the things that I’m reading here. And then I go, this is not practical. It’s almost like being somewhere with two beautiful at a beach. I can’t be here just for an afternoon. I have to go to work like this is, I should go somewhere where it’s not as pretty, where I’m not,
[00:03:15] you know, what’s funny.
[00:03:16]This is first and only book I ever recommended to you that I haven’t read finished for exactly the same reason. I was like, okay, I started and I said, Oh shit, this is so good. This is so good. And then, you know, I, I was, I was added for like a couple of weeks and I was still. I don’t know, maybe 20% into the book.
[00:03:32]and then, you know, life happened and, and, uh, but I was like, okay, this I can nerd out with steely about this and together. Gotcha. Together. We will make it through it. Beautiful. Okay. So, uh, if you haven’t heard. A book. That’s so awesome if you haven’t finished it, but you cannot finish it because it’s too good.
[00:03:52] It is too good to, to keep reading a book too good to keep reading as beautiful. so put the book down and now I feel a little discouraged and I think. Well, what should I do? Should I just put it aside? What’s the right way to go about this? And then I remembered my youth, my reading youth, at least in my youth, I was not reading.
[00:04:16] It was not a reader, but when I started reading books, age 16, when I really got into books, let’s say age 17. I, I don’t know where I read this step in some self help book dude, somewhere very early on in my reading journey. I read that our subconscious minds are so powerful. They’re this massive computational force, anything and everything you ever see or experience everything in anything you ever read will be stored forever and can be accessed.
[00:04:47] Don’t you worry about it. And I instantly believed this. I don’t know why this was such an easy thing for me to believe. Maybe because it was very convenient maybe because something inside of me, it rang true. It’s something I had already known before reading it independently, if it’s true or not, I don’t even want to talk about science.
[00:05:04] Any of that, I read that and that really benefited me so tremendously in my reading career, in my life, because I remember.
[00:05:12]Dude, like 50% of the books. I was reading age 17 to 20 half the books. I barely understood. They were, I remember pages and pages of reading with zero comprehension. I would buy these very complex business books and my vocabulary was terrible and I was not a reader and I was not really well educated.
[00:05:36] And I knew nothing about business. And so I would read these books and I remember sometimes two pages, three pages of me reading and thinking, I don’t, I’m not able to read it, understand what I’m reading right now, but then I would, then this other voice would click into my head that said, but your subconscious is storing all this information and magically you’re going to be smarter, just trust in the process.
[00:06:03] And I. Kept reading. And I felt smart, even if I knew nothing. At the end of the book, there was a lightheartedness, a childlike flow in the way I would consume this information that said the things that can pick up, I can pick up and the things I can’t, I will fly by. And it all is going to work out at the end.
[00:06:23] Let the magic happen. Your brain is going to become bigger through this training. You don’t have to worry about the details. And that was really powerful. That was a powerful attitude I had to reading because I mean, otherwise I don’t know if I’d ever been able to become so passionate about reading because the first hand, you know, the first few books I read, I really didn’t understand most of the stuff.
[00:06:50] And for many years that was the truth, but I never let that slow me down. And I remembered that, that feeling of lightheartedness, of flow of just belief, then the thing that I need to learn, I will learn. Right. Just dance. Don’t think too much about it. That relaxation being able to relax, even in these, I mean, back when I was young, it was moments of not being able to understand.
[00:07:17] Maybe now it’s trying to understand too much too quickly. Trying to squeeze too much value out of too many pages instead of relaxing and going. This is an amazing book. This is the kind of book that you cannot read once.
[00:07:32] Yeah. If you can revisit, it’s like a reference,
[00:07:35] this is a book you have to experience many, many times.
[00:07:40] And you’ll go through it now. And what is most important and what really matters will stick with you. It will move you in ways and shake you. You don’t have to worry about it. And all the other things that you also find fascinating and interesting, but you can’t quite take with you from the first reading.
[00:07:59]They’re still in you in your brain, right? If you believe in the morphogenetic field, they’re still out there in the ether for you ready to download. And you can revisit the book. And in the second time you go there, maybe you notice you’ll pick up other things. Other things will move. You shake you shape, you, touch you, influence you.
[00:08:21] You don’t have to get everything out of this in the first go. This is too much pressure you making it work. Like literally when I put the book aside, It for a split second, it moved from something I am falling deeply in love with, to something I want to run away from to something where I go, this isn’t right.
[00:08:49] This is too much. I can’t, this is too slow. And there’s too many things in here that are really want to capture. And it makes me tense instead of making me relaxed.
[00:08:59] You know what it’s like for me? Tell me for me, it’s like when you have a really great meal and maybe, you know, wine, and then you eat it and you enjoy it.
[00:09:09] Right. But then also like, it’s like, there’s only so much that you can take in at one time. Right. And then, you know, if you, if you, like, for me, if I just keep reading, it’s like, like I’m just emptying the bottles, you know, as much as I can because it’s a good at. So then it kind of ruins it. So. Just this familiar, like taking just as much as I, uh, as I wanted that point is what really works for me in this case.
[00:09:36] That’s beautiful. You have your way, I have the right way of doing this. Everybody, everybody that, something, somebody does the right thing. No, that’s, that’s awesome. And I think that’s also, I mean, I wanted to talk to you about reading for a while on the podcast, because I do believe that a lot of people have.
[00:09:58] This bad reading habits and reading habits that really Rob them of the wealth and richness and beauty of reading, because most people are learned to read in school and reading, like reading was a school exercise. So. Many many people have built this, these beliefs about reading and these habits that are not ideal.
[00:10:25] I have to read a to Z. I always have to read, cover to cover, no matter how much I hate the book or know much, no matter how much I don’t want to consume everything I have to. When I start, I will suffer myself to the finish. It’s my homework. It’s a must. What are you doing right now? I’m reading a book. Oh, what book?
[00:10:47] It’s not that good. Oh, why are you keep reading? Well, I haven’t finished it and I really want to finish it before I get to this other book that I’m really excited about. Oh, Uh, how much longer do you have to read? Well, a couple more weeks. Why the fuck are you doing this? Why would you suffer through a couple of weeks of reading something you hate to get to the next book?
[00:11:05] And then
[00:11:05] it’s like being in a bad relationship that, you know, it’s never going to get better.
[00:11:11] Gnosis they look at you and they go out. There’s no other way. You know, you have the power to put the book aside. No, I started it. So third away you have to finish shit. So people think they have to read, cover to cover.
[00:11:25] People think they have to finish once they started, which is not true. People think that it’s one reading. It’s once I read the book, I know the book now, it’s also funny, like you talk to people about some book and they say, yeah, I read this many years ago as if they want to dismiss the possibility that anything in that book could have escaped them in terms of knowledge, wisdom.
[00:11:46]And as if it’s a never changing artifact, that’s captured in time where once you consume it, once now, you know, everything the book has to offer. We talked about this before. I don’t know if I did an episode on this, but I’ve taught this many times and I’ve talked about this many times where as you change every book, you have changes.
[00:12:07] You there’s books. I’ve read five, six times, and every single time I’ve discovered new things at the fifth time. There was almost a sense of this. It’s not possible that this chapter existed. The previous four times I would be in disbelief. It’s I know this book inside out. How could it be that there’s a whole chapter that never existed before this time reading it?
[00:12:30] I’m sure somebody changed my copy. As you evolve and change as a person, every book you read is changing in memory. As well as if you re-read it because you, as the reader are part of the reading experience, that’s something people don’t comprehend. So I’ve always taught, told people to reread their favorite books and also to reattempt.
[00:12:50] Sometimes I pick up a book, I start reading it and I go, this ain’t for me. And then two years later, I pick it up and I read it and I go, my God, this is the most beautiful thing ever. It was not for Steli two years ago. So I tell people when you have a strong reaction, the books, I really, really, really hate.
[00:13:05] I revisit. That’s also the reason or one of the reasons why it revisited dune. I attempted to read it a couple of years ago and I really fucking hated it. I hated it a lot. It’s easy to hate. The beginning of that book is, I mean, if you want to have comprehension, when you’re reading, the beginning of dune is not your book.
[00:13:25] You have to, you do. And it’s such a great example. I didn’t realize this is, this is very moment dune as a book where when you start, you have to let go of the need to comprehend what you’re reading, or you cannot keep going. People always bring up the same story. I started reading dune. There are so many words, references, names, things in there.
[00:13:46] Every page is filled with things I don’t understand. And nobody explains. Yeah, you’re thrown into this foreign world where you can make sense of things. And it’s just confusing and frustrating, just confused and frustrated until, and if you keep going slowly, but surely that frustration things click into place.
[00:14:07] Names started to start to come alive. And now you’re immersed in this world and you’re like, Oh my God, I’m in full wild riding. You’re enjoying every bit of it at the beginning is harsh. It’s so first time I read it. I hated it. I didn’t read the whole book. I read, I don’t know, first couple of chapters and I’m like, this sucks.
[00:14:23]And then the second time I read it, I remembered how much the first time suck, but I thought maybe I’ll just keep going without having the need to like it. And I just trust that a book that is so loved by people. I respect that is such a monumental piece of art. Highlighted by all these incredible people.
[00:14:47] It can’t be as terrible as my reading experiences in the beginning. Maybe I just need to trust and let go and see if you know, in a couple of days I get into it. It’s a trusting, believing in that got me to become the biggest fucking do nerd and fan. No reason, at least in my, for all my friends, my appearances shaped up quite.
[00:15:09]No differently lately where they’re all like, what is wrong with Steli and telling me that I have to redo every, every end of the year I buy, we buy a book that I have loved that year for everybody that works at clothes. I might have to buy doing this year over. People will hate me for this. They will be confused.
[00:15:34] Right. I fucking love that book, but it was the, the second time around, not the first time around. So I say, when you have strong emotions, when you really, really hate something or really love something, revisit the book, you can’t just read it once or twice
[00:15:46]jumping in, in a book. Like people don’t understand that.
[00:15:51]Especially, maybe not in, in fiction, in fiction, right. Because there’s a whole story. I’m not sure if you could just read the two random chapters of a novel and like get anything or get much out of it. Maybe who knows? I don’t know. I’ve never attempted it, but nonfiction books for fucking sure. You could pick up a nonfiction book, read one chapter.
[00:16:13] The thing that’s most relevant to your problem, put it into work and you read the book. You didn’t read the whole book. You didn’t try everything, but it doesn’t matter. Especially when you’re trying to acquire new skills, picking up these books and then reading them cover to cover. It might be good for you, but it also might just be slowing you down because cover to cover at the end of the day, you still just pick out and really implement a very small handful of things.
[00:16:37]Now people always fear that they’re going to miss something if they don’t go from beginning to end. But the truth is you will always miss things. You will actually, most, you will almost always miss almost everything in almost every book you will. Here’s an exercise. Something that I’ve tried for myself.
[00:16:58]And it always shames me into shock when I finish a book.
[00:17:04] Rameen not every time, but most of the time I go through a little mental exercise where I asked myself if I had to explain to a friend what this book is about and what they will learn, what would I say now with some monumental books that I’ve recently read?
[00:17:23] This is easier to me. But with many, many books that I like, this is not that easy truth suffers from too much analysis. So, you know, a lot of non-fiction books when I read them or like the trending, you know, there’s always trendy books. what is it, what is a recent blockbuster? A nonfiction book? Let’s think.
[00:17:42]Oh, what is the habits book? That’s so big. I’ll make habits. Yes, boom, atomic habits, or, you know, I mean, I’m just about to read brief or I’ve just recently read, uh, why we sleep. These are huge books, but once you, when you finish them a week later, if you had to give somebody a summary, you don’t have that much.
[00:18:05] Usually. At least I, I don’t have a hundred interesting facts. I don’t remember. I remember one or two stories I can summarize. I can summarize it after read the book oftentimes, slightly better than if I just read the summary. And especially with these books, I find almost that oftentimes you get more out of watching the, you know, 30 minute Ted talk.
[00:18:27] They do then. Spending seven hours reading the book. Yeah, because they, they, the Ted talk is the four best stories put together. And the core message of the book. A lot of times these books have one core message. It’s very simple. Then they have a million stories, research and stuff to entertain you. And make you believe more and more in that one message, but you’re not really learning that.
[00:18:52] Like you’re not learning that much, that a month later you’re able to retain dude, most of these nonfiction books a month later, what people could tell you about the book is mostly what you could read at the back of the cover of the book. Yeah. And it’s not just other people, myself included. I do this test all the time and I’m shocked often times, you know, this, I mean, it was entertaining sometimes to read, but in terms of what I can tell you about what I learned, it’s kind of shockingly small amount of information I retain that is available.
[00:19:27] The beautiful thing about fiction is that you don’t have to retain information. Is because as you read this, that those stories, oftentimes the mere effect of losing yourself in the story is touching and effecting you and changing you in the process in a, hopefully if it’s a beautiful book in a fundamental way, But with books like dune, I don’t tell people about all the characters.
[00:19:48] I’m not a nerd. Duh, I’m kind of a nerd, but not that much of a merit. I’m not that I’ll tell, let me tell you about all the planets and this and the, you know, what the scent worms do doing? No, dude, I never talk about any of that shit. What I talk about is the beautiful writing is the scope monumental task of what Frank Herbert attempted in writing it.
[00:20:12] I talk about the character building the world building. I talk about the writing, cadence, the play with rhythm, the play with lingo of word and sentences. The effecting you pushing you. The, I talk about the beauty of the experience. I don’t give you. It’s like, you know, writing a, an amazing rollercoaster and then getting off of it and somebody asks, so how was it you go, Oh my God, it was incredible.
[00:20:42] That’s what I do. Like, I give you the emotion of the experience was amazing. And then maybe I’ll give you a summary. Like I thought I’m going to die. And then it got worse. And then I thought, now I’m going to die. And then it got even worse. That’s, but I’m not, how was the rollercoaster ride? Well, you know, um, first we went in a bright turn.
[00:21:02] We were going up for 13 seconds. It was staying up in the first turn for three seconds. Then technically at a 67 degree fall, we were nobody’s explaining the rollercoaster ride that way, same way, a beautiful story, a beautiful piece of fiction writing. This is what you, this is usually what you should do, not, you know, and I may explain you there’s 17 characters.
[00:21:25] One name is roto. The names is so-and-so. They were like, who the fuck is this shit? I can read this myself. I don’t need, I don’t need the count of bolts on this rollercoaster, dude. I don’t need, I don’t need the tons of metal that were used. You know, I asked you how was the right? Right. So, but. Non-fiction books, oftentimes are almost a how to build a rollercoaster.
[00:21:50]You know, he is a manual to building rollercoasters. This is the amount of bolts. This is the amount of metal. This is the safety precautions. That’s what one part of it is. The other part of it is, let me explain you why rollercoasters are exciting. The psychology and history. Did you know when roller were invented?
[00:22:06] Do you know what happens in our brain when there’s a roller coaster? Did you know that a psychologist has analyzed that roller coaster ride is. Very close to the anxiety of losing a parent. Those are the nonfiction books and they always go through the same pattern that the name of the book is rollercoaster.
[00:22:24] And then the subtitle is the secret signs and forgotten facts about why we as humans need a thrill. It’s every new non-fiction book that’s coming out. That’s a blockbuster. So one name, one big idea. Yeah. And then the art and science and hidden knowledge and history of why humanity, yada, yada, yada. And then there’s like a million interesting stories about all these rollercoaster rides or things that happened.
[00:22:46] The psychologist, the cat scans, the signs, this three, the folklore, and at the core of it is you need joy in life. Awesome. All right. Cool. Good story. Why did I need to read 700 pages to get to this conclusion? I need Joe. Yeah.
[00:23:03] There’s also a distinction on the, in the storybook, McKee makes -about like the truth with a lowercase T and then B T true threat where it’s like, so th the lowercase truth is like the facts, what you can observe the accuracy.
[00:23:17] Right. but then the capital T truth is th th th there you go, is located behind, beyond insight. Below the surface of things, holding reality together, or tearing it apart and cannot be directly observed. I thought that was so beautiful.
[00:23:33] Yeah, it’s dope. It’s a dope book coming back to it. I decided to keep reading and enjoying it because for me, this book already.
[00:23:42]Is amazing and has been an amazing experience. I could stop here and I feel I’ve gotten something from it, but when I read without the pressure to take everything with me and from it, then it can give me if I let that go, that idea. And I just go through it because it inspires me. To love writing. It inspires me to think and feel about storytelling, which is something I very much want right now in my life.
[00:24:15] I want that kind of inspiration then it’s beautiful. And so for me, I decided to try and attempt and keep reading with a bit more of a lighthearted approach. And with the knowledge that book is not running away, I don’t have, like, I don’t have a once in a lifetime chance and every page I read disappears.
[00:24:34]I can read this as often as I want. And if maybe in a week as I read it, I don’t have as much fun. I can put it aside and revisited later, but right now I do have the desire to read it and I have the desire to enjoy it.
[00:24:48] And when you do the, sometime in the future, a fuzzy memory can come up and you’re like, Oh, he said something about this and you can go back to the book and look it up. And then it’s there. I also, this, this makes me think of like the days when, I was like, as a, as a teenager, reading, reading, and like basically everyday spending in the library, right. Skipping school and, and, I was like stoned in the library, just going through books. And I read like, they’ll still have ski and and all these things.
[00:25:15] And if you ask me what it is about, like what’s the idiot about, I can’t even tell you anymore, but what I do know is I loved it when I read it. I loved it when I read it, like, when you ask me what is, what is hunger about? I don’t even, like, I can’t talk about the book anymore, but there’s like feelings, moments that I remember about it that stayed with me.
[00:25:33] Um, there was magic.
[00:25:35] And why do we have. The expectation that when we read, we need to retain impressive information. We can recite to others and ourselves decades later. Why is that the expectation nobody would ever go, Hey, did you go to this? You went to this festival. Oh, you went to Woodstock. I mean, this would not be a thing anymore because it’s probably people would be too old.
[00:26:00] I don’t know exactly what you would suck was, but you went to this burning man or whatever great festival. How was it? Even if it’s a years later, we don’t expect them to give us a, you know, first day at 97, B seven, Oh, this band played this song for like, let me give you the exact lineup of all the songs and how long, every detail nobody expects that.
[00:26:24] People will tell you about the way they felt. Excitement. That was one big moment. This crazy didn’t happen. And Oh my God, it lost their mind. And I was, you know, laying grass, looking at the stars, listening to the music, feeling the love of the universe. And then we had this adventure and then this great other thing happened and all in all, it was just this adventurous weekend that changed me.
[00:26:47] And I’m so grateful for it. Isn’t that an, a good enough summary. Nobody would question that. You would not question yourself, wait a second. But I can’t tell what every band played in the exact sequence of all the notes. And if they changed any song that nobody would analyze it that way. But with books because of schooling, I think we go, well, I could not pass a test.
[00:27:11] If somebody gave a Tolstoy test today, I would not bet so surely I’ve not read it. Well, I need to feel shame for the way I read it. Bullshit bullshit. Even if you read it, not stoned. And even if you’re a, some like the only people that can read some of these books and recite them in perfect detail of people where that’s their job, that’s all they do, professor of literature.
[00:27:37] And even that person won’t be able to do that with every book. They read, you know, a hundred times more literature then than a normal person. And then they do nothing else. That’s their job. And so they’re a bit more eloquent usually, but that’s, can’t be the, that’s not the standard to set you read it. Did.
[00:27:55]Did it provide value to you? Was the experience beautiful were the moments that you love. Then if you afterwards can say nothing else, but I loved to read it. I felt great while reading it. That’s a good enough summary.
[00:28:10] And there’s another thing sometimes where, sometime in, in like real life, right.
[00:28:15] Uh you’re in some situation and it reminds you of some parts, some element of some story of the books, a moment in the book, you’re like, Oh, and you, it actually changes the way you, you, you feel, and you see about what’s happening right now. And even about the way you act. And then, you know, another adventure unfolds in real life.
[00:28:32] That is. Partially because of that book that you read, right?
[00:28:36] Everything we consume and everything we experience becomes part of us in the smallest way possible. Maybe it’s such a small piece that you cannot CEP find it in a separate form. In the soup of your subconscious or personality or heart or emotions or whatever.
[00:28:56] Right. Well, you can’t identify every little bit of it, but the whole of it is who you are. It’s the experiences we’ve had. Part of the experiences that we have as humans are the stories we tell and the stories we listen to and learn from. You can’t every book I’ve ever read is part of me in some way that I don’t understand some books are such big part of me that I do understand that can point to a piece of me and go, this is, this was this person or this book or this specific experience.
[00:29:27] But most of it, most of who I am and how I think has been shaped by these experiences and stories in ways that I cannot, I don’t know, I cannot follow. I cannot point to it doesn’t mean though that they didn’t have an impact. Or that they’re not part of me, but now imagine if, while you learned to read and the only place usually for most people were reading was a real thing to be tested around, to have to prove that you’ve done.
[00:29:53] It is school. Now, imagine school was telling you, read these books, immerse yourself in them and who the fuck cares. If you can say anything about it or not. Just enjoy it. That would be amazing. But how would that be possible? Schools, schools would explode. Teachers’ heads would explode. You know, this doesn’t work in a factory system like you can’t be telling factory workers.
[00:30:19] Here’s a bunch of tools, just be creative and build something. Know everybody, you have to follow the process and do it in a way that shows your work and can be proven and generates a average. But predictable outcome at the end. Cool. That’s how people learn to read. That’s what people’s reading experiences mostly contain of.
[00:30:39] And then when they grow up and they keep reading, that’s the shape and pattern in which they feel themselves confined in and they don’t even know that they can break. You can break out of that pattern. Nobody can tell you what reading is and it isn’t or what good enough or not. Good enough reading is.
[00:30:57]Lots of people don’t read because exactly of this fact they read and then they go, I don’t really like to rebook books. I go, why? Well, you know, I have a really, I have an add mind mindset, have a difficult time, you know, reading for an hour. Like I, you know, after 10, 20 minutes, I I’m kind of getting restless.
[00:31:15] So 10, 20 minutes, we’re reading this. Perfect. Who tells you, you have to read for an hour or? I don’t remember a lot of things when I read. So who says you have to remember everything when you read it, do you enjoy the experience?
[00:31:27]Nobody goes, I don’t read because while I’m reading, even when I read something really beautiful, I hate every second of it. They usually bring up reasons that are more related to, I don’t think I, you know, a month later I have a lot of information on the book. I feel like I read too slowly. I think that I don’t read don’t enjoy reading for really long periods of time.
[00:31:51] Sometimes I don’t feel like finishing a book. And so I had two books in a row I didn’t finish. So kind of just stopped reading because I don’t think I like reading you and I as readers. No, you know how many, let me ask you. I mean, how many books do you start on average last, let’s say two years. Just a guess.
[00:32:10] How many books in the last two years did you start and discard? Because you didn’t like reading. I’d say I just counted around 60% of all the books. I started reading 60% of all the books. How many books do you read a month? Guess guesstimate. It doesn’t have to be accurate. It’s so different. It’s really changed in the last year I got asked.
[00:32:30] He was the year when I rediscovered my joy of reading. Maybe five. There you go. When Rameen has joyful reading, maybe he reads five books a month. You are pretty intense reader. I’m sure there’s people that read more than you, but not many percentage wise. And there’s ups and downs. I’ve gone through the same thing.
[00:32:49] I’ve gone through years. Where, to me a year where I didn’t read is maybe a year where I read eight books. To me, that’s like reading nothing that year. I read absolutely nothing. Got other people a year where they books would be a phenomenal record setting here or reading. But, I mean, I would say for me, yeah, it’s more than half, more than half of the books I start.
[00:33:11] I don’t finish, but you and I were totally okay with that fact that doesn’t instill any guilt in me. I would love to know how many people stopped reading because they picked up a handful of books that they didn’t enjoy. And then they went reading. Isn’t it for me, there are all these fucked up ideas about.
[00:33:31] What reading is and what it’s supposed to be and how you supposed to perform while reading. And if you take these dumb ideas, then it’s very easy to get to the conclusion of reading isn’t for me or to do it. But in a way that’s so much more work and it should be Also service announcement. Some people will hate me for this.
[00:33:52] Listening to audio books is not really, I have very good friends. Even some of them that I podcasted with in the past, they shall remain nameless. They think audio booking a book is reading it and it’s not, but it’s still awesome. I’ve audio books. Thousands of books. I mean, I downloaded thousands of books on audible.
[00:34:12] I don’t know how many I listened to actually, but hundreds for sure. And it’s awesome. I love audio books. I love audio books. I’m just saying, listening to an audio book versus reading a book, two different experiences. They’re both valuable experiences. I’m not saying audio books are not valuable. They’re amazing.
[00:34:32]They’re just very different. Also reading a book by yourself versus reading it with someone else or reading it to someone else. Also very different experience. Saying words out loud, changes, changes everything. It’s not just that it’s more work. It changes the experience because now you’re much more in a, you perform part of the book.
[00:34:58] You don’t just consume it. And so all these things reading without taking any notes versus reading while taking tons and tons of notes and writing some reason, very different experiences. All of them are beautiful. All of them can be magical if you shake the shackles. And free yourself of old ideas of what reading is and isn’t and how reading is supposed to be done and what is good and bad or valuable, not valuable read because it’s awesome.
[00:35:30] There are so many incredible books out there that will change you. They will enrich your life so tremendously, but it’s not going to be every book. It’s not going to be most books. Most books you pick up will not be for you at that moment. Some of them will be for you and decent. And then the very few are going to be life-changing.
[00:35:51] If you read a lot, the number of life-changing books increases over the years, but it’s all fun and games. If you have a relaxed attitude and you see books as this incredible world that you can immerse yourself in versus. A homework assignment that you have to do right. To pass the test of. Did I read this well?
[00:36:14] And did I understand everything well and do I retain every little bit of it? Good enough. Who the fuck cares?
[00:36:25] I fucking love books so much. We should be in the book business. If it wasn’t such a shitty business to be in. I mean, if it was not the most terrible business in the world, I would want to be like a book publisher, like in a way it’s like you, you are able to borrow somebody else’s mind. Right. And try that on.
[00:36:47] And, and, uh, to me that’s amazing. And oftentimes it’s, you know, people who are incredibly smart and even if you’re not incredibly smart, you can, you can borrow their mind for a while and look at things how they see it, which is fucking amazing if you think about it, right? Like if there would be a, a, some kind of chip that you can put on your brain and it gives you that ability.
[00:37:10] Holy fuck. But there’s books, you can do that. Yeah. Books are exactly that. And that’s where they’re also different. Then a movie, for instance, movies are also amazing. It’s a very different medium, but people like you could think, why not just watch the movie versus reading the book? The book will take so much more time and effort.
[00:37:32] The movie is just one and a half hours and I lean back and I don’t have to do anything other than keeping my eyes open, but there’s a significant difference in. How intense you will live through this other person’s life or through this downloaded part of their brain goes so much deeper, goes so much deeper and there is the difference.
[00:37:59] There’s the difference in value? Yes, it’s slower. It takes more effort, but it is a complete download versus a cheap. Or a cheaper copy that gives you the outline of the shape, but doesn’t give you that part of the brain of the author fully like experience through your own emotions and through your own imaginations and your own brain at the end of the day, anyways, books are amazing.
[00:38:32] I wonder what books is it? Something I wonder about is. Pete authors today, who is an author today, or what is a book that was written recently? That is true. Truly great. And will stand the test of time because we are, we have a pretty big book industry today. There are books that are shoot, but I made a bit of fun of them.
[00:38:58] I mean, it’s still difficult to do in there. I’m sure they’re very valuable. But these books that follow a formula that sell that, I just can’t believe. 10 years, 30 years, 60 years from now, anybody will care about or know what are the books today that a hundred years from now people will say are classics.
[00:39:21] The people will still study. I want to know, are we still writing these kinds of books? There must be somebody writing books like that. Who are these people?
[00:39:30] Anyways, read more books, kids. It’s good for you.