But it's not just the easy access to a lot of reading material. It's the very nature of information today. No one has the patience for the epic novel. It's information in titbits. One chunk at a time. A tiny morsel. A buffet of snacks. No sumptuous meal.
Can anyone sit through an epic novel like, say, Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace? All one-thousand two-hundred and twenty-two pages? The patience to read one word at a time. And slowly paint a scene in your mind? How about the six-hundred and seventy-two pages in James Michener's Caribbean?
Patience is a virtue. The ability to sit and wait. To read slowly and digest deliberately. Even in this fast food culture of taking large gulps, it helps to chew slowly. Taking small bites.
Reading is an art form. Grossly undermined. We learn to read as children. Are read to by our parents. Are read to by our teachers. And are read to when we watch TV. It takes a lot of patience to sit quietly alone and read, by yourself, without interference. And this is why it's an art form.
Like drawing, it doesn't come easily. Drawing is about looking and seeing. Not about accurately putting to paper the world as others see it. Drawing is about exploring your world. About looking carefully and observing light, shadow and colour. Drawing is about slowing down to take a really good hard look at your world.
And reading is quite similar. Reading is about taking a string of words off a page, meditating on each one, carefully forming a sentence in your mind with each word and then painting an image. The image is purposeful and real. As real as the words on the page. And therefore when you read a sentence, you absolutely have to pause as your brain assembles the complete picture.
One word at a time.
One sentence, or phrase, at a time.
One paragraph at a time.
One page at a time.
Reading is a physical activity. It involves a huge amount of concentration. Something that we've lost. Like taking a long walk. You get tired and want to rest along the way. Reading is a lot like going for a long marathon run. You should not be looking for the finish line at every step. When running a marathon, you should be concentrated on the moment. The feeling of the moment and what you are doing in the present time. Because if you take care of the present time, the rest will take care of itself. And the finish line will appear.
When you read, to take small bites. You chew. You savour the words in your mouth and roll them around your tongue. You feel the different flavours of each piece, each morsel, each word. You make sure that you also pay attention to the combination of words, the full bodied flavour. Taking in the scent. And finally you swallow and enjoy the feeling of satisfaction. The feeling of having understood what you just experienced. Don't be in a rush to jump into the next sentence. Are you sure you got it all? Was there something in there that's missing?
I know that's a lot of work. I know it's a lot of work to sit there and learn to be patient as you extract meaning out of a sentence. But believe me, once you practice reading this way, you'll never read a different way, ever again.
I once took a speed reading course. Self taught. It was fairly good. Taught you where on the page you should look. How to centre your eyes without too much side-to-side movement. Focusing on a spot, somewhere in the middle of the page, with your eyes between two lines. Trying as much to take an image, a picture, a snapshot of two lines with barely discernible movement of the eyeballs. The image of the two lines now imprinted on the back of the retina, your brain digests and strips the meaning out of the words just read. Without necessarily focussing on individual words. Like taking a handful of peanuts in your hand and throwing them all in your mouth. With great crushing bites, chewing for impact. Not one peanut at a time. That would take too long. Handfuls. Great flavourful lunges of peanut joy. It's OK if you don't get a taste of each nut. You get the big picture by taking handfuls. And very soon, the entire bowl of peanuts is finished and your brain is free to process the experience.
It's one huge experience. Looking only for the message. The climactic finish. No need to enjoy each piece. If you can fly there, why go by car. Why bother walking? It's faster, better, more economic and time saving to fly. Nobody walks any more.
So I always encourage the slow-paced reading method. Even though I thought that the speed reading course was great. And I did get a lot out of it. It was also taxing and tiring. A lot was missed, and hopefully unimportant stuff. But there's a lack of enjoyment when you use the speed reading method. It's like unhealthy fast food (not the tasty fast food, the unhealthy stuff) that makes you feel hungry a few minutes later. Jamming the information into your brain just because. Not really taking the time to savour the richness of what you're trying to understand. Even if you do, re-telling it to your mind with your own words.
Read slowly, purposefully, consciously, contemplatively, meditatively, calmly, respectfully, engaged and inquisitively.
