The Books I Wasn't Really Reading
How Curiosity Taught Me to Read Differently
A Question About Books
Books.
Some people love them, some people avoid them at all costs.
What is it about books that some people can’t find enough time to read all they want, and others won’t make the time to read at all?
I can recall a time in my life when I avoided books at all costs. The thought of sitting down to read seemed like a waste of time, and I dreaded it.
It was not until I was 26 that the Bible became such a large part of my life, and I realized I might be missing out on other good books.
At first, I considered maybe people just have different interests than I do.
Looking back, I believe it was something much deeper.
The Beginning of My Reading Journey
My journey started with a biography of Stonewall Jackson.
It was a book I had sitting on my shelf for whatever reason, and I figured it would be a good place to start. I knew nothing about him other than that he had a cool name and that he fought in the Civil War.
I ended up enjoying the book, and during this period, I also discovered Audible. I could listen to books while I was working.
This led to titles like The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The Art of Power (A Thomas Jefferson Biography), and many more.
I found biographies very inspirational.
I may not have agreed with everything they did, but there were certain things I noticed in their life that seemed valuable.
I found Stonewall Jackson’s unwavering faith to be something worth imitating.
I appreciated Thomas Jefferson’s interest in culture, which led to an interest in wine tasting.
It was as if these books unlocked an understanding of the world that I had never considered.
I felt as though I could see the world through another’s eyes.
When Reading Became a Numbers Game
My natural disposition leans towards accomplishing a task in the fastest, most efficient way possible.
I can trace this mindset through many of the journeys in my life.
It’s easy to understand how this transferred over to reading.
I found a website called Goodreads, which allows me to track my reading progress and set a goal for how many books I will read in a year.
I realized how many books I had read in previous years and decided I would set a goal higher than that.
Instead of enjoying the process, it became a race to a record.
This may explain why my reading habits were hit or miss throughout the years.
Some years, I am really into reading and can’t read enough, and some years, it is painful to sit down and pick up a book.
My reflection time throughout the past months led to an understanding that I am approaching this venture with the wrong mindset.
The goal isn’t in the number of books I am reading, but the value I receive from each book.
Am I leaving value on the table and not even realizing it?
At first, I thought it was quality over quantity.
As it turns out, it was something deeper.
Learning How to Read
I remember browsing through books one day on the library app when I stumbled across a book titled How to Read A Book.
This seemed like a silly concept to me.
It’s simple, you just read the words, right?
My interest brought me to this book, and I skimmed through before giving it up at some point.
Today, I realize this guy was onto something.
Something that I had neglected ever since I started this journey.
Once this had become clear in my life, I started approaching books with a completely different mindset.
First, how many books I could read in a year became meaningless.
Books come in many shapes and sizes, and the pursuit of completing a specific number was no longer measuring what was important.
Second, I started approaching books with curiosity.
I opened these books with more questions, and more specific ones at that.
I wasn’t just reading for pleasure but to answer the questions.
They say if you leave the house and look for everything red, you will notice it everywhere. However, if you leave the house not specifically looking for it, you won’t notice that it’s everywhere.
Having specific things that I wanted to understand from the books I was reading helped me to more effectively retrieve the value from the publications.
In this process, I was looking more closely and moving more slowly.
This is not a mindset consistent with a number goal.
The Hidden Depths of Knowledge
This discovery of mine led me to reflect on why this happens.
Many of us are content with the low-hanging fruit of knowledge.
We satisfy ourselves with the main points of a book and understanding the big picture.
It’s when throw ourselves headfirst into the depths of the unknown that we realize just how deep it is.
We seem to naturally want what is easy.
However, once we discover the unknown, like the wardrobe that leads to Narnia, our curiosity continues to lead us to the treasure not visible at first glance.
Where we first noticed the simple and poor Edmund Dantes, we search for the complex and sophisticated Count of Monte Cristo.
Who would have initially guessed that those were the same people?
The Search for Mastery
Consider this example from my life.
The thing that has always fascinated me is mastery and those who have accomplished it.
I had already dreamed of being a master of something, whether it was football, chess, or something else.
I read books on mastery, studied the masters, and tried to replicate the models.
I found the truth to be that, although they can explain what the masters had in common or you can witness their life journey, it often lacks the deeper answers to the pursuit.
For example, a book may tell you that to be a master, you must be disciplined.
Then they will give you many examples of the masters who had great discipline.
The problem I found is that one doesn’t just wake up and say I’m going to be disciplined and it all works out fine.
Discipline doesn’t just fall from the sky.
I remain with the question,
How do I become disciplined?
Maybe we read that all the masters had great courage.
Well, what exactly is courage?
One does not just enter a situation and say I’m going to do courage.
Courage is often someone else’s explanation, something they noticed in somebody.
Well, what did they notice?
The questions continue to flow until you get an answer that sufficiently explains what you are looking for, or an answer you can experiment with to see if it’s valid.
Consider this quote by Alexander Hamilton:
“Men give me some credit for genius. All the genius I have lies in this: When I have a subject in hand, I study it profoundly. Day and night it is before me. I explore it in all its bearings. My mind becomes pervaded with it. Then the efforts that I make are what people are pleased to call the fruits of genius. It is the fruit of labor and thought.”
You get the impression this wasn’t merely a man who scratched the surface, but was obsessed with understanding.
I imagine his books, covered in the wear of life, as he wrestled with the text to find the deeper things, to make the connections to his life, what he already understood, what he was currently attempting to do.
From reading his biography, I am convinced this consumed his mind in a way that most people do not experience.
How else do you explain how the man who was largely responsible for creating the financial structure in America died a broke man?
Poetry and the Art of Looking Deeper
I recently took up reading poetry.
Throughout the past, I never thought twice about it.
When it showed up in a book, I found very little value in it and often glanced over it and moved on.
Found petty pleasure in it.
Since my awakening to the process of deep reading, I have found great value in it.
It is an art form that forces you to ask questions, convicts you to look deeper, and challenges you to dig beneath the simple meaning of words to understand what the author is really trying to say.
What might have seemed worthless and simple at one point then becomes like an Indiana Jones adventure to recover the lost Arc.
You may never completely understand what the poet meant, but the value is not always in having a complete answer.
The value often comes in the process of searching for the answer.
When pursuing the answers to mastery, I was quick to think I had the answer as I started going deeper, only to find out there was something else that I couldn’t explain.
I still don’t know the answer with certainty, but I can tell you I have grown tremendously.
The Detective Mindset
The work of a reader is comparable to that of a detective.
The detective shows up at the murder scene, and questions arise from what he sees.
For some witnesses, a couple of questions on the scene build a picture of what happened.
However, it is the ones called back to the station, interrogated thoroughly, that provide the information that makes or breaks the case.
Quality or quantity was the question for this essay.
Which one should I pursue in my approach to books?
My answer is yes.
Both answers are as correct as they are incomplete.
There remains a missing ingredient.
Curiosity.
Aim to get the most out of every text.
What do you hope to understand from this book?
What questions are you hoping to answer?
Once you have satisfied your curiosity, move on.
You may find that you have read fewer books at the end of the year, but you found more value in the ones you read.
What started as an investigation into how to get the most out of a book has led to something deeper.
The curiosity that fuels reading.
Feed your curiosity.
“Curiousity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.” — Samuel Johnson
What topic has captured your curiosity so completely that you couldn't stop thinking about it?