The Utility of Reading

I've always been interested in disseminating useful information to many people. In high school, I wanted to start a magazine. In college, I founded a club that taught women about self-respect and independence, and the state of other women around the world. After college, I worked as an editor of a trade magazine, and now I work in city magazines. But what I am really passionate about is books.

It would be a rewarding, challenging, dynamic learning experience to get up in front of students and provide an avenue for them to learn lessons from other people's stories in books. What better way to travel when poor? What better way to learn about your enemies? What easier way to get a first-hand look into another culture? Remember what its like to be young, or discover what it feels to be old...

For the longest time, all I could think of was teaching writing workshops, and maybe women's studies. But now, I've come to see a deeper utility in reading. Mostly because no one reads. I know people who read some -- a few books a year, maybe more -- and I know people who read one book a year. I know people who don't read books at all. And I know avid readers who read trashy magazines, romance novels, Dean Koontz crap. Just meaning, there is plenty of literature out there, and I fear no one is learning.

Reading opens a gigantic door to empathy. Reading makes you walk in someone else's shoes. Reading makes you identify with people you perceive as different. Reading cultivates a sensitivity around what it means to be human: to be aware of your own and others' vulnerabilities, to understand we are shaped by our culture, religion, diet, choices, sexual preference. Reading makes us understand how people turn to heroin and why people smoke. Reading helps us understand what its like to live with cancer, be depressed, or be in love. Reading can help us cope with death. Reading can bring new worlds into view. Reading reminds us that things change, and teach us to be appreciate of that fact. Reading reminds us to question authority. It can also make us laugh, imagine, dream, escape, time travel, and so much more.

This is not a campaign for literacy, because the basic skill of being capable of reading is a necessary tool for success at a fundamental level. I am talking about something transcendental. An everyday transcendental experience -- or at least taking a shot at it.

One of my favorite quotes says, "At every instance, one is either growing into something more or shrinking into something less." This quote has inspired me and scared me on and off over about 8 years. I forced myself to memorize it when I was working at a skeezy democratic campaign office with people I didn't respect, save myself and one other. I didn't want to get stuck. I see learning and personal growth as an avenue to freedom and agency. Reading lends both.

Do people realize this? Is this a personal perspective, this passion about learning, reading, growing? Is it worthwhile to try to cultivate this in others?

I think it is, absolutely. And I'd like to try.

20 BOOKS THAT HAVE CHANGED MY LIFE:

1. Tao te Ching, by Lao Tzu
2. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig
3. Sophie's World, by Josteen Gartner
4. Elegy, by Larry Levis
5. Huck Finn, by Mark Twain
6. The Tao of Physics, by Frijtof Capra
7. Cat's Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
8. The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula LeGuin
9. On Liberty, by John Stuart Mill
10. How to Read a Book, by William Adler
11. Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville
12. Malcom X, by Alex Haley
13. Almanac of the Dead, by Leslie Marmon Silko
14. The Tipping Point, by Malcom Gladwell
15. Being and Nothingness, by Jean Paul Sartre
16. The Second Sex, by Simone de Beavoir
17. The Book, by Alan Watts
18. Toward a Philosophy of the Act, by M. Bahktin
19. In Another Place, Not Here, by Dionne Brand
20. The Alchemist, by Paulo Coehlo