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A lot of commenters are saying this is cringe or pretentious, and sure, it is a bit, but the advice provided here is also truthful. I don't write or talk about

A lot of commenters are saying this is cringe or pretentious, and sure, it is a bit, but the advice provided here is also truthful. I don't write or talk about my reading habits when I was younger, nor am I as dedicated to it at my current age as the OP is, but the idea of taking your time, reading old classics, and giving deep thought (really time to have deep thought) to the ideas within helping to expand your mind and your conception of the universe is definitely true. I used to read so obsessively that one of the punishments used for me was to take away my books, similar to how people take away phones from teenagers now. If I look at my own life and career, as a college dropout who nevertheless attended for four years, both in my professional and my personal life most of what I know I either learned from books or from other people directly (or sometimes via YouTube). I don't see it as elitist for the OP to point out his prestigious education when making this point as some other commenters do, but rather intended to reinforce that even if you have the world's best college education it pales in comparison to what you can learn by simply giving yourself the space and time to think and reading through the source material upon which such an education would be based in some way, anyhow. To a large degree, what he's describing trying to attempt was the entire point of a classical liberal arts education, but our current institutions largely fail to actually provide such an education anymore. What's so pretentious, ultimately, about sharing a methodology and the benefits of that methodology, when the source material is largely available to anyone for free or minimal cost via the Internet and their local library? I feel like it should be refreshing to know that there is still deep value in exploring the world through the written word without needing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on schooling. It's essentially the same thing that was said in the famous quote from Good Will Hunting: “You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library.” So much of the writing about reading encourages people to use reading as a social activity, reading only what's new and popular, or to read quickly thinking that it's the volumes on your shelf that matter, this article is a somewhat refreshing take by making the very truthful point that you should take your time, read things that are old but important enough that people still remember them, and write about what you read and your observations.

MrJohz 3y ago
For me, at least, it's less about the reading. I always used to be a big reader like you describe - I had exactly the same experiences having my books being taken away from me for misbehaving, or even just reading too late at night - so I'm fully on board with the idea that people should read more, and challenge themselves to read new and different things. For me, it's more the idea that reading is going to turn your life around somehow, or that just by reading the right classics you can make yourself a better person. That feels like a self-justification for pretention more than anything else - the literary equivalent of the "holds up spork" meme where you make something you're interested in into an entire character trait. I think the idea of reading replacing an entire liberal arts education is also kind of laughable. I've done a lot of reading, and although my own formal education veered more towards engineering, I had friends who did the liberal arts properly. There's no real comparison between my casual reading of Dostoevsky ("a bit morose, wouldn't recommend") and someone who understands enough of his literary context that they can take his books apart and show you why everything is like it is. (That's not to say you can't learn these things as a lay person, just that there's a lot more to literary criticism and the wider liberal arts than just "go away and read".)

MrJohz 3y ago

For me, at least, it's less about the reading. I always used to be a big reader like you describe - I had exactly the same experiences having my books being taken away from me for misbehaving, or even just reading too late at night - so I'm fully on board with the idea that people should read more, and challenge themselves to read new and different things. For me, it's more the idea that reading is going to turn your life around somehow, or that just by reading the right classics you can make yourself a better person. That feels like a self-justification for pretention more than anything else - the literary equivalent of the "holds up spork" meme where you make something you're interested in into an entire character trait. I think the idea of reading replacing an entire liberal arts education is also kind of laughable. I've done a lot of reading, and although my own formal education veered more towards engineering, I had friends who did the liberal arts properly. There's no real comparison between my casual reading of Dostoevsky ("a bit morose, wouldn't recommend") and someone who understands enough of his literary context that they can take his books apart and show you why everything is like it is. (That's not to say you can't learn these things as a lay person, just that there's a lot more to literary criticism and the wider liberal arts than just "go away and read".)