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User1  3yr ago (text post)   4093 thread views

Why Read?

I have never read a book in my life. I might as well be illiterate, and most people around me might as well be too. Most libraries are vacant, and bookstores are gone. But all these people are doing fine - we put anything down on paper, and despite its incoherence it seems fine by standards that have stooped for reasons I do not know. I can turn in something that makes absolutely no sense, and an instructor from a decent school will tell me that he enjoyed it. Or an instructor won’t enjoy it, but since most people don’t write anything comprehensible anymore I’ll still be fine. I can cruise through my education and get a job while barely having read much at all. Everyone frequents some variant of flimsy entertainment - cable news, cartoons, social media - so why bother trying to read anything worthwhile anyways if nobody else is? Does reading actually make you more curious, more intelligent, more human?

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I like to think of things like game of thrones and jack reacher as gateway drugs to the good stuff you mentioned in your note. After all, at least half of, if not more capital L Literature started off as pulp trash for plebs. For someone who has never read a book, I expect jumping straight into Aurelius or Camus would be kind of daunting, or maybe straight up off putting.

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