Read Good Books

Have you ever passed by some fast food joint, saw the tasty options available, and decided on the spot to roll into that greasy cafeteria? The food is crap, it makes you feel terrible, but damnit it's so good you could eat it all day. And have you ever sat down to a really special meal? Whoever made the food took all day long to make it, they used the freshest ingredients, they took time and effort to make this food really beautiful. The food is so righteous that the first bite is a slice of heaven melting into your mouth like a snowball in July, sweeter than a December suntan. You can taste the love. That meal lasts an entire lifetime. The memory ... unforgettable.

Most of the media we consume nowadays is fast food. It's short, simple, easily digestible, nice to look at but lacks substance. Whether it's polarized political soundbites, the latest celebrity nip slip, kittens being way too adorable, the newest fat loss magic bullet, or advertisements sensationalized with half naked glittery unicorns seducing you with their scantily clad flanks there is a whole shitstorm of useless information floating around nowadays.

You could argue that all this information is harmless, but I'll argue otherwise. If you're in the West, you're in an environment that is being constantly bombarded by information, people, experience, etc. Because life is so short and we can only pay so much attention to any one thing at a time, the opportunity cost of everything is incredibly high. To do one thing means not doing another, so that if we invest our time attention on useless endeavors, we waste time that could be spent doing or learning incredible things. Furthermore, a lot of the information available to us lacks substance, is poorly researched, makes outrageous claims, or is simply a distraction. You can spray paint shit gold... but it's still shit.

It's easy to read sensationalist journalism, watch vines, look at memes, or read some out of context, over-generalized interpretation of a single research study. It's quick. It feels good. But The intent of these information doritos is to attract attention, not to provide accurate or useful information. When we absorb shallow forms of information we get a shallow understanding of reality.

Don't get me wrong, there are legitimate sources of information on the internet and from the media. There are some really talented writers and journalists out there who communicate some incredible information. The difference with their information is that time and effort and mindfulness were put into the work. Good writing (and good art in general) comes from writers who care about what they're writing and about communicating honestly. Just like a really quality meal comes from an individual taking the time to direct heart and soul through masterful skill, good writing comes from an individual putting in the time, care, and respect to communicate something powerful and important.

And that's what you see with good books. Works like Stephen Pinker's Better Angels of Our Nature, Nassim Taleb's Black Swan, or Rachel Carlson's Silent Spring took years of effort, research, and creative output to accomplish. The people writing the books had a passion for their topic, the tenacity to research and put together these works, and the mastery to elucidate their message to the world.

That includes novels too. We like to absorb information exactly as it is, a lot of us "don't have time to read fiction". But we can't forget that the narrative is our most primal form of communication, we crave stories. The best novels -just like the best art, music, poetry, dance, etc.- impart fundamental lessons about life by taking you through a fantastic journey and allowing you to live in another's shoes, if only for a moment. Books like Herman Hesse's Siddhartha, David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, or George Orwell's 1984 impart incredible lessons and change how you see the world.

When it comes to any form of art -and writing especially- the more effort, beauty, honesty and largesse put into the work, the more worthwhile the read is and the more your life will be changed for the better. So don't waste your precious time on silly soundbites and glitzy gunky glib goo. Read good books, follow good blogs, watch good movies, listen to good music, see good art, visit beautiful places.

You only live once. That's not an excuse to selfishly pig out and take everything you can out of life. It's a warning: life is so precious, and so short, and so chaotically beautiful. We can only capture our little corpuscle of it before it's all over. So worship your little corpuscle, spend your time wisely, and read good books :)