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Can reading make you happier? (2015)
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agoReading the Mistborn trilogy has made me happy in ways that are hard to quantify. The first book drags in the middle, and the trilogy as a whole drags in the second book, but they're not impossible to read
- hartator 2y agoWhy it made you happier?
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agoI elaborated here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41153987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41153987
- winter_blue 2y agoWhat about those books made you happy, specifically? Could you distill it down to a set of points or aspects or ingredients? (Which, if another book series possessed, would make you happy as well.)
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agoThere's just some quotes and ideas that stuck with me. A hero who smiles on principle, to spite a dictator who thinks he can control happiness (paraphrasing, sounds better in the text) Knowing that someone didn't really betray you in the end "I wonder how Preservation felt when his creations repeatedly failed him" "Maybe Preservation knew that the emperor of mankind was about to lay down in the ash, never to get up" "There's always another secret" "I'm not sure if dismemberment is fatal for his kind" The big bad evil guy no-selling a couple of spears sticking through his torso Launching yourself through the air to gank an enemy commander A bad guy who's nostalgic and trying to do his best for the world just in a fucked up way Powers of two are a sign of divine intervention "I write these words in steel, because nothing else can be trusted" If two people both use the magic that lets them see a few seconds into the future during a fight, they both see a confusing mess of possible futures Kelsier showing up somewhere, laying waste, and leaving. Happens twice I believe. I think the scars from the Pits of Hathsin are some understated allegory for self-harm but maybe I'm imagining it. I'm kinda pissed they did a deal with Fortnite. No movie and the franchise instead gets the equivalent of a McDonald's happy meal toy? It's the only genre fiction I've really read in years
- richie_adler 2y ago> Powers of two are a sign of divine intervention A little weak, though. I'd rather have something more impressive, like the message embedded in the decimals of Pi as found in the Contact novel. (That also doubles as an argument to present to believers: "if the real world had something so concrete and verifiable in the real world that could only have been inserted by the creator of the universe, that would be an actual reason to believe that such a creator exists. In the mean time... please don't".)
- GeoAtreides 2y agooh man, imagine how happy you would be once you start reading good books.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agohaha never!
- layer8 2y ago“Not impossible to read” is truly high praise. ;)
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 2y agoIt's a guilty pleasure, I don't like that Sanderson belongs to the Mormon church (they believe weird things and I think have too much political power in Utah) and I just couldn't get into the rest of the franchise. (I partly liked Final Empire because of Vin)
- odyssey7 2y agoKnowledge increases suffering
- lr4444lr 2y agoEcclesiastes 1:18
- Zecc 2y agoI didn't know that. You've just increased my suffering.
- MrVandemar 2y ago“Life without pain has no meaning” — Schopenhauer
- 082349872349872 2y ago"Life without horses, hounds, or women would leave nothing to talk about" —the english officers who used to eat lunch next to Schopenhauer
- leoh 2y agoAs someone who grew up roughly orthodox Jewish I am feeling super angry at your casual translation without context.
- yaysyu 2y agoCare to offer more context? I am interested in understanding more
- odyssey7 2y agoNo offense intended -— my appreciation for the text is sincere. Below is some of the context. Ecclesiastes 1 New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition Reflections of a Royal Philosopher 1 The words of the Teacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. 2 Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. 3 What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? 4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. 5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down and hurries to the place where it rises. 6 The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; round and round goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. 7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they continue to flow. 8 All things are wearisome, more than one can express; the eye is not satisfied with seeing or the ear filled with hearing. 9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in the ages before us. 11 The people of long ago are not remembered, nor will there be any remembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them. The Futility of Seeking Wisdom 12 I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I applied my mind to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven; it is an unhappy business that God has given to humans to be busy with. 14 I saw all the deeds that are done under the sun, and see, all is vanity and a chasing after wind. 15 What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted. 16 I said to myself, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my mind has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind. 18 For in much wisdom is much vexation, and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%201&version=NRSVUE https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes%20...
- jakeinspace 2y agoWon’t even pretend to have read the article, but I’ll recommend the last book to really make me existentially happy and which helped me out of a bout of depression: The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem. If you liked Gödel, Escher, Bach then I suspect you’ll enjoy it. It’s whimsical but quite deep.
- free_energy_min 2y agoGlad to hear you are happier :) Out of curiosity why do you think it helped? Creating a sense of wonder and fun about the world?
- riffraff 2y agoInteresting, I loved the cyberiad, but it made me sad and angsty while still being fun. I believe this is true for a lot of SF, the same thing can be read as disheartening or encouraging.
- richie_adler 2y agoI find this curious. Were you able to identify the cause of your anger and angst?
- riffraff 2y agonot anger, just, let's say, emotional discomfort? I felt perhaps some of the stories "hit too close" on topics like the meaning (or rather, the lack of meaning) of life and civilization.
- eduction 2y agoThis is really about whether reading highbrow fiction specifically can make you happier. I find it odd. Fiction was created as and remains fundamentally a form of entertainment. It’s like asking if watching Netflix can make you happier. Yes sure but not usually deeply. This is just another symptom of how we’ve made literature precious, and appreciating it almost religious, certainly a form of snobbery. The New Yorker will write an article like this on “bibliotherapy” but never take seriously the idea you can get the same affect from binge watching the Sopranos.
- sandspar 2y agoHot and cold mediums. TV is hotter than novels, colder mediums require more effortful cognition. A novel is more of a blank slate that you project your own experience on, thereby making it more meaningful for you. A TV show has already been pre-processed by casting agents and actors and set designers, so it's less personal to you and hence less meaningful.
- SoftTalker 2y agoIDK. I've certainly "binged" on reading an engrossing novel straight through. I don't get the same engagement watching TV. I've binged on TV for maybe 4 hours at a time then I just get to feeling like a completely lazy slob. I've spent 12+ hours on a book more than once.
- d1sxeyes 2y agoThis is a really interesting point. I completely agree, but I cannot identify why. If I spend a day reading a book, I feel as though I had a nice day reading. If I binge watch a series I feel as though I wasted a day. There must be some logical reason for this difference, even if both are “just entertainment”.
- kwhitefoot 2y agoTelevision is hypnotic. I vaguely remember someone claiming that watching television was more effective at slowing breathing and metabolic rates than meditation and yoga but without making one feel refreshed. I can't remember where or when I saw this. But perhaps some part of the population is getting out from under that now that fewer people watch broadcast television favouring on demand services instead. I don't watch broadcast television any more at home but I do when visiting family and I now find it immensely irritating except for the few splendid things like Suchet's Poirot (better than the books in my opinion). And occasionally a gem like Emma Thompson's Sense and Sensibility turns up as it did on a British TV channel last week. Perhaps it was the story and my own immediate circumstances together but it had me in gales of laughter at one moment and gushing with tears at another. I just turned the television off afterwards.
- snide 2y agoReading, to me, is the best method to learn empathy. We all read differently, in our own headspace, but then need to distill that view through the godhead of a fictional character. Movies and TV can't touch that slow drip of mindcopy a book provides. TV we witness, books we live alongside. Often I'm stuck in the personality of a book for weeks at a time, and it's impossible for the experience not to leave a footprint. Happiness I've found easiest to achieve with that empathy. Understand those around you and know your place in the world and what is and is not possible to change. Being malleable in a group while still retaining a sense of self provides a way to travel and adapt in whatever situation you find. Only books provided me with enough experience to "know" myself and how I'd react in certain scenarios. I don't think it matters much what you read. Whatever challenges you and gets you to see the world slightly askew.
- mrmetanoia 2y agoone of my college English professors would say 'reading makes your soul grow big,' something he said he heard from a friends dad. it's stuck with me.
- owlninja 2y ago"I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me"
- riffraff 2y agoThis is wonderful, I often regret having completely forgotten the content of some books, but this makes me feel less bad about it. If you came up with this thank you dear internet person!
- localhost8000 2y agoIf you want to learn about the provenance: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/06/20/books/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/06/20/books/
- crims0n 2y agoAs a non-religious person, I have found a lot of “meaning” in reading literary fiction. I don’t know if it has made me happier, but it has definitely scratched an existential itch.
- dukeofdoom 2y agoFunny books seems like an overlooked category. Maybe we can get a list going. Here are two: Candide, and The Pilgrims Progress.
- JohnKemeny 2y agoSlaughterhouse five
- kwhitefoot 2y agoAnything by P.G. Wodehouse.
- __rito__ 2y agoJK Jerome is the author that has made me laugh the loudest and most times. Try the novel "Three Men in a Boat". It's extremely funny. I loved Candide, and will try the other one.
- Lio 2y agoA Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
- AntoniusBlock 2y agoGargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Lawrence Sterne The Recognitions by William Gaddis
- michaeldh 2y agoCatch-22
- t2h3423lk4234 2y agoDepends. If you're reading the same old normative low-entropy "old-school soap opera" things (even if it's not a novel), you'll be fine. If you step out of the bubble, it becomes painful to the point of destroying/changing your life. Eg. real history of India that is outside the totally controlled colonial outposts of London/NY, and how closely the European moves till date matches what they were doing in classical non-Xtian Rome (many projects to this day are named after the genocidal Xtian "saints" from back then.).
- Vecr 2y agoWhat's "Xtian"?
- delichon 2y agoI spent so many hours reading books as a child and feel that my world is larger and richer for it. But even so I'd like to go back and whisper in my little ear, put down the book for a while and go outside and read the world with every sense and then write on it with every tool you can find or make. I love books but have hidden in them as much as built on them. All good things can be abused.
- kwhitefoot 2y agoPerhaps I was just lucky but I did both. In my primary school years I spent the long summer days of the long summer holiday tramping the fields, building dams in streams, catching newts, frogs, tiny fish in my hands, getting muddy to the eyeballs, in the evenings I read everything I could lay my hands on. At breakfast I read the back of the cereal packet if nothing else was available.
- sanderjd 2y agoEverything in moderation! But I don't think it's very common for reading to be the thing that keeps people from "touching grass" enough. Especially now that the competition is screens and social media.
- delichon 2y agoBeing raised before the internet appeared increasingly feels like a privilege.
- otteromkram 2y agoWhile I don't have any myself, when I'm out and about I'll look around and see kids outside playing. Basketball, hopscotch, tag. Even when I don't see it live, chalk drawings on sidewalks are clear giveaways that young people still go outside and have fun. I grew up with the internet pretty readily available and still had similar adventures to what the parent comment mentioned. The internet has become ubiquitous to everyday life, but humans are still human and kids are still kids.
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- samuba 2y agoThere has actually been studies on that. "Does Reading Literature Make People Happy?" https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334901338_Does_Reading_Literature_Make_People_Happy https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334901338_Does_Read... This study suggests that the reading induced flow state is the main reason for increased happiness.
- 7734128 2y agoWho uploads a .doc file to a scientific repository? It's not even .docx.
- layer8 2y ago72 year old literature professors, apparently.
- HenryBemis 2y agothe dude's email is w_p@yah... talking about OG!
- canistel 2y agoI have read a lot, throughout my life, although little has stuck :). I have felt that, among other things, reading is also a means to escape, from anxiety, from the need to plan and structure your time and from the expectation to engage with others (particularly if you are an introvert). It is a lot like heavy drinking in that aspect (Oops)...
- giraffe_lady 2y agoThe books I've read are like the meals I've eaten. I can't recall very many of them in particular, but even so they are what I'm made of.
- canistel 2y agoI have seen that some activities tire you out, while others do not. Reading, slowly but steadily, tires me. I might then need to doze off for a few minutes to resume. Certain other activities, on the other hand, keeps me awake, like mindless browsing, programming (especially at the beginning of a project), OS installation, and even (please do not laugh at this) filing taxes. Why is it so? (This question in my mind has been long unanswered, so any inputs or suggestions are welcome).
- verisimi 2y agoSurely the answer is the level of emotional engagement you have? Eg dissatisfaction, excitement, engagement with authority, etc.
- kherud 2y agoI think it's more about invested work vs. reward. Mindless browsing is one of the lowest work activities, but the influx of information is highly rewarding for the brain. That's why it's so addicting. Programming and OS installation are more work, but there is direct progress. Filing taxes is just work, but at again it's a very direct way to feel productive. All of these activities are immediately rewarding. Reading on the other hand requires a lot of concentration, without much immediate reward. And I think the ratio here is highly subjective for most people.
- canistel 2y agoThank you! I have seen that I read the last chapters with increased focus and at times rush (while trying not to skim) through. Finishing the book must be perceived as a reward by the brain, unlike completion of a page or a chapter or even a section.
- GeoAtreides 2y ago> Reading on the other hand requires a lot of concentration, without much immediate reward. Depends on the book. Also, the act of reading and being immersed in a new story is instantly rewarding for most readers.
- __rito__ 2y ago> "In a secular age, I suspect that reading fiction is one of the few remaining paths to transcendence, that elusive state in which the distance between the self and the universe shrinks." Wow. I have thought about this, too. It has helped me understand and empathize with people loving and embracing Gods. It is common to love Harry Potter even if he doesn’t exist. If some people starts loving a God based on scriptures, even if that God doesn’t exist in the physical plane, the love isn’t non-existent. It might be pure, too. I am Indian, and we have rich mythologies somewhat like the Greeks and the Nords. And, I felt that if people begins to love physically non-existent being, that love might help in tough times, give people peace, etc.
- graemep 2y agoI think there is a difference though. For most people love of God assumes the existence of God. Its far more important than any feelings about a fictional character can be. I understand your point, of course, I just want to clarify that there are important differences too. Love of books themselves gives people help and peace too - it is a sort of healthy escape. You can immerse yourself in a book. I suppose books are like religious comfort in that sense.
- richie_adler 2y ago> For most people love of God assumes the existence of God. Its far more important than any feelings about a fictional character can be. And that's actually a problem. For them, that love for a fictional character that for them is real is, in many cases, more important that the love for real people. For whatever reason.
- __rito__ 2y agoI agree. But I commented because there is a significant overlap between the two. For Indian mythology, many, many people believe that their Gods are historical characters, too. And I have seen plenty of non-zealous, non-fundamentalist, hatredless, kind people who believe in this way, and the peace they derive from it to see it as fully bad. I know the other side of the coin, too. But you should know that such people exist. I read some basic "Bible for Kids" kinda stuff before it, but the first time I felt something for Jesus Christ was through the novel Ben Hur. When fiction and living religion is mixed in a good way, with zero ill-intent, the differences fade to a significant degree.
- nj5rq 2y agoObviously depends on what you read... > innovative courses to help people deal with the daily emotional challenges of existence. No offense, but what the hell is this.
- globalnode 2y ago"You’ve read your last free article." -- no happiness for me :(
- toastedwedge 2y agoClearing the cookies for that website should(?) fix it. Or disabling JS.
- mikkom 2y agoListening to audiobooks has definitely made me happier. I don't even watch tv that much anymore, listening books has taken TV's place for me.
- somedude895 2y agoSerious question: Do you do something while listening to audiobooks? Go for a walk? Cook? Or do you sit / lie down with your eyes closed?
- mikkom 2y agoI do all of those. Also running, cycling and also just sitting down and listening. I never listen with eyes closed however if I do I'll fall asleep.
- wizerno 2y agohttps://archive.is/rfwJC https://archive.is/rfwJC
- jl6 2y agoReading is widely, massively promoted in schools, for all the right intentions (it really is a very important and enriching foundational skill), but to such an overwhelming extent that we sometimes forget that reading is a form of consumption, not a truly unalloyed good. The art of consumption - whether media, food, sex, resources, or otherwise - is in consuming the right amount of the right stuff.
- polycaster 2y agoAfter all, reading is mostly thinking with someone else’s brain.
- djaouen 2y agoYes. IF you read the right things!
- yowayb 2y agoWhen I’m stuck on a problem, I find that re-reading some relevant documentation slowly is relaxing, and often I’m happy to get something I didn’t get the first time, and might need soon!