I must admit that I have fallen victim to someone else’s goal.
I stumbled upon a blog post of a fellow who had set a goal of reading a book a week for 2009 and mentioned that he had, in fact, got through 54. This intrigued me, but also seemed very ambitious and so I decided to “steal” that goal and add it as one of my own for 2010.
Now it should be noted that I have never come close to reading that many books in a year. I’m not sure I have read that many books in my lifetime.
And don’t get me started on the mass collection of “new” books on my bookshelf that serve double duty (I strategically use them to trap and provide a home for stray dust). They possess the same qualities as most of my resolutions. They were started with great enthusiasm, but sadly, were never finished.
But I have come to realize that plowing through a book is not my intended style.
[ Note: I should make it clear I am referring to nonfiction books. I think fiction serves a different purpose and thus possesses a different structure to engage the reader.]
In fact, I would go so far as to say that if I plowed through it then it offered very little in the way of ideas that I had never before investigated. Sure it may confirm something I already knew, but if I already knew it, then my world hasn’t been expanded.
True nonfiction should be littered with unique thoughts that take us to worlds that we have never before explored. And in the spirit of Captain Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise, it is our duty to explore these worlds fully and completely.
You can’t do that on a drive by. Kirk knew this all to well. Beaming down with his merry band of misfits, assimilitating to the world they now inhabited and making it manditory to make out with at least one alien chick per episode was all due course in the exploration of these new worlds.
Great non-fiction should be explored with the same directive, minus the alien copulation. New ideas should be underlined. Notes should be madly scribbled in the margin. Journal entries should pour forth. Imagination should run wild, whether it be for 1 minute or 1 week.
So the next time you read a book, judge it not on the speed upon which you gobbled it up, but rather evaluate it on the new worlds it exposed you to.
Because in the end, your ultimate success will come on that one world you decide to inhabitate and eventually populate.
To an idea worth quitting,
Dean
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