„Parafrazînd o aserţiune augustiniană, pot spune doar atît: citeşte şi fă ce vrei…” – Ioan F. Pop – „Citește și fă ce vrei”
On reading / readers: „Iată de ce Humanitas a fost – și este – încercarea de-o viață de a da răspuns acelei întrebări de tinerețe, strădania de a face să intre în lume trupul de carne al spiritului, cartea, pesemne singurul trup al spiritului care există.” – Gabriel Liiceanu – Cum pătrunde spiritul în lume? (La o aniversară)
It might look that the best thing you can do for self-development is to read. Want to become better? Read. Want to do something good? Read.
Some objections to this logic:
- I know people who read a lot and do other forms of cultural activities (like watching movies and being absorbed in culture) and don’t work too much. It’s their choice to decide „I prefer to read, not to work”, but I don’t this is an ideal state of living. It’s nothing bad with reading, but when the reading stops you from doing something with your life, that’s not so great.
- You might know people (some of them are famous) who read (or used to read) a lot, and they can do bad deeds. It’s just not true – „read and do whatever you please”. You can read and, still, generally, be an evil person.
- Finally, there are many ways in which a person’s formation gets shaped. I find it difficult to think that a person reading 10 hours a day knows more about life than a person who reads much less but is engaged in other activities. It’s great if you can read a lot, but it’s not the only way to have a formation. There are so many things to watch, listen to, and do, there’s places to visit – and, in the end, it’s the (perhaps-boring) work. If you work a lot, things tend to happen to you.
“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.” – Thomas Jefferson
PS, 2021.05.08: Cum pătrunde spiritul în lume? – Blog de Olivian Breda.
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