TotallyHuman
It's good to be home.
- Joined
- Feb 13, 2019
- Messages
- 3,996
- Points
- 183
I had an idle talk with someone today. As a first class closeted introverted misanthropist, I don't talk to others much. So the talk went something like this:
"So, wanna talk about anything?"
"What exactly?"
"Do you watch TV shows, for example?"
"I don't"
"Read books?"
"Yeah. But they aren't worth talking about. They are the literary equivalent of TV shows"
"What? What kinds of books are those?"
"Well... low level stuff"
"Like, textbooks?"
"No, more like junkfood"
Which was around where the conversation ended, plus minus margin of error.
When I came home, I remembered it, and decided that maybe reading more of these kinds of books - or, rather, consuming this kind of monotonous homogenous mass of content in text form, is not a good idea, and, maybe, it'd do me good to cut down on that and visit the church more instead (or something).
Well, I've never been that good at drastic changes to life - which is why I am here, writing this forum thread instead of taking a long walk in the nearby park.
Anyway, what makes the books I read "junkfood"? Because these kinds of books coddle me (replace "me" and "I" in this line with "you" and see if it still makes sense)
Books should hurt you. They shouldn't make you feel comfortable.
A novel where most my ideals are affirmed and where the author bends over backwards to make sure that the characters get rewarded for living according to them make me feel comfortable. But like a bag of cheetos, you don't notice when it is gone and it lacks substance.
A novel that brutally beats me down and critisises the logical flaws in my ideals of how things should be are not comfortable to read but they are like a steak - you have to work your teeth on it and will get more nutrition from eating it than from doing a whole bag of cheetos.
So I guess I will try going for novels that will make me want to not read them. Who knows, maybe I will dislike the process enough to not want to read novels again, huh?
"So, wanna talk about anything?"
"What exactly?"
"Do you watch TV shows, for example?"
"I don't"
"Read books?"
"Yeah. But they aren't worth talking about. They are the literary equivalent of TV shows"
"What? What kinds of books are those?"
"Well... low level stuff"
"Like, textbooks?"
"No, more like junkfood"
Which was around where the conversation ended, plus minus margin of error.
When I came home, I remembered it, and decided that maybe reading more of these kinds of books - or, rather, consuming this kind of monotonous homogenous mass of content in text form, is not a good idea, and, maybe, it'd do me good to cut down on that and visit the church more instead (or something).
Well, I've never been that good at drastic changes to life - which is why I am here, writing this forum thread instead of taking a long walk in the nearby park.
Anyway, what makes the books I read "junkfood"? Because these kinds of books coddle me (replace "me" and "I" in this line with "you" and see if it still makes sense)
Books should hurt you. They shouldn't make you feel comfortable.
A novel where most my ideals are affirmed and where the author bends over backwards to make sure that the characters get rewarded for living according to them make me feel comfortable. But like a bag of cheetos, you don't notice when it is gone and it lacks substance.
A novel that brutally beats me down and critisises the logical flaws in my ideals of how things should be are not comfortable to read but they are like a steak - you have to work your teeth on it and will get more nutrition from eating it than from doing a whole bag of cheetos.
So I guess I will try going for novels that will make me want to not read them. Who knows, maybe I will dislike the process enough to not want to read novels again, huh?