Please, For The Love Of God, READ!

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December 13, 2009 at 2:35am

This post is NSFW. (just some cuss words though, so if you work at a web agency, nothing your boss doesn’t scream)

This is a post to stress the importance and awesomeness of reading. I’ve added quotes and a Family Guy video, in the hopes that you’ll actually pay attention. I’ve stressed the importance of writing before, but this cause, reading, is near and dear to my heart. We need to keep reading the written word. I mean full-text books. I mean technical books that are 1000 pages long that explain how a code-base works. I don’t actually mean paper, I just mean pieces composed of more than 500 words. Granted, that’s an arbitrary allotment, as some of the best stories and technical manuals are not as dense.

You’re not illiterate. I trust you aren’t. Otherwise you and myself will be surprised if you understand this, baldy. You read twitter every day. You may even have the antiquated technology of another age: a feed reader. You email, you type, you receive email, you read. You know the basic format of a sentence. Sure, yours might lack value, richness or even the ability to correctly describe something… but still, you understand it. I trust this much.

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” - Groucho Marx

Reading is one of the easiest ways we, as humans, can attain a higher level of consciousness. It’s what pushes us (along with hard work, intuition and plain ol’ trying shit out) to a higher level of experience and knowledge. It opens worlds outside of our work, and ignites the magnanimousness we seek within ourselves. Reading adapts and changes with our life, and hopefully, occasionally pushes beyonds the borders of comfort to explore an unknown territory. It is the easiest passage to insight, which hopefully leads to exploration. To deny our ability to explore in words is to step upon the greatest of our potentials.

Reading doesn’t have to be paper. It can be on a Kindle. I don’t romanticize the paper days, and in fact find them quite wasteful, but a book is still an editorial process, a writer, and a delivered tome of completeness served directly into your brain inaudibly. It’s the least resistant force of learning next to cyber-implants. Reading books as an act, requires thought and processing.

“I don’t believe any of you have ever read Paradise Lost, and you don’t want to. That’s something that you just want to take on trust. It’s a classic, just as Professor Winchester says, and it meets his definition of a classic—something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.” - Mark Twain, Disappearance of Literature.

I agree with Samuel. You don’t have to read the classics. You have to read the horrible books as well. You have to talk about how they’re horrible. You need to share.

“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore” - Steve Jobs, NY Times

This is often quoted, and many times when I hear it used in casual conversation or discussion it’s an excuse for not blogging or not whatevering involving something. The problem I have, and it’s critical to understanding this quote, is that Steve Jobs never says “I don’t read anymore.” Steve Jobs says “people don’t read anymore”.

If you’re one of those “people”, you’re missing out. Books are awesome! Blogs are great, books are better. Read blogs and books! Read blooks!

Readernaut

I’ve invented a new tagline for one of my favorite sites:

Readernaut: Fucking. Awesome.

Readernaut first came to my attention about a year ago. It’s a great site, has a great UI, and focuses on what’s important. Chronicling and sharing your reading experiences and recommendations with others in an excellent way. It does so intuitively and has minimal configuration or setup. It uses Amazon’s API, so chances are if you’ve read it its on there.

I’m suggesting everyone take some time and start reading be it again, or for the first time. The fact-of-the-matter is that it’s really really fucking easy to pick up a God-damned book. You’re doing yourself a disservice by not. Even TV is more enjoyable with this knowledge.

Please, sign up for Readernaut and start chronicling and sharing. I want to see what you’re reading and I will start sharing. I clean-slated my account and started over. I have two books in there: Django and Learning Python. Start adding your books, writing notes, tracking progress and sharing. Write a review when you’re done. You can find me here. Share with me. Let’s learn something. You’ll probably have interesting recommendations I won’t find, and I probably won’t. Mostly Harry Potter fan-fiction… but I’ll share and write and we’ll learn. Granted, we’ll learn about Hermoine’s fictional gay three-way, but still, it has its merits.

If you’re into New Year’s Resolutions, which are kind of sexy, please make it reading. Don’t just read nerd-books. Literature, Non-fiction, Poetry. Absorb it. Make time for it. Then share. Don’t just read to imbibe, read to spew out. Read to learn something about who we are, then ask those who are here, what they are reading. Read to build a bridge between cultures and death, fart-jokes and religion. Read your ass off.

Please, for the love of God, READ! If you don’t, you’re a douche. You’re a douche who hates America.