Perhaps You Shouldn’t Read This

I’ve warned you

Photo by Matias North on Unsplash

Reading is bad for your mind.

I’m dead serious. Think about it: if you spend your life reading thousands of books, scouring the libraries of the world, internalizing every idea, every message, every thought, every story, then who are you? You will live a thousand lives yet none will be yours. Not a single thought in your mind will be original; not a single lesson will be chewed down and internalized, for fear of wasting precious mental space that could hold yet another page. Not a single feeling will be wholly genuine; only borrowed, secondhand, vicarious.

I swear by this unpopular opinion: Reading is better than not reading — unless you could have discovered, on your own, everything the book would have taught, shown, revealed, or made you feel. Sometimes it’s better not to read. The paradox is that without reading, you can’t know what you’re missing, and once you read it, it’s too late to discover it for yourself. That’s why, in principle, reading is better than not.

And yet, this paradox partly explains why some Greek philosophers distrusted writing. The written word is a memory disabler and the natural enemy of thought, reflection, contemplation, and wisdom. The unexamined life is not worth living, as isn’t the life you don’t live at all because you’re too busy peering into the lives…