Somewhere in 8th grade, I decided I’m done with school. Every morning, I’d leave as usual, but instead of heading for school, I would head to the library. And I’d spend the day there just reading. Hours and hours of reading. I wasn’t a particularly happy person back then, in fact, I was pretty miserable, but I remember those days spent in the library fondly. I would wander through the rows of books and pick one that caught my interest, read a few pages and then either go all in or put it back in place.
By the time I was 17, I had read more books than most people would read in their entire lives. And it was effortless, in fact, reading to me was a beautiful escape from the real world. Reading was easier than living. And as a byproduct of all that, I now had an enormous body of knowledge in my head that to me seemed completely normal.
Nowadays, I read maybe 5 books a year, and that once enormous body of knowledge is no more. In fact, every couple of years I begin reading a book and realize 100 pages in: I’ve read this before! Such was the case with Kafka’s The Castle for example, where when I read it at first I thought: “This reminds me of this dream I once had long ago that I have forgotten about.” Only later did I realize that it wasn’t a dream, it was just that I had read it before. But it kind of was a dream when I read it the first time. I was so absorbed in that world, it seemed more vivid than reality.
Books barely do that for me anymore. Work, responsiblities, and then when I have some time for myself to just relax, I typically prefer something shorter and easier: a movie, a podcast, some scrolling and surfing.
Apparently, I’m not the only one. Rose Horowitch published The End of Reading is Here. It’s a very long article that basically says: People read a lot less. (It’s worth a read though if that’s the kind of thing that interests you.)
And while I think it’s true, I do sometimes wonder if you’d actually install a read-word counter – do we really read less now? I still read a lot, the words that I read are just rarely in books. They’re mostly on websites and in chatbots. But I read a lot. I enjoy the reading a lot less, and it is no longer the delightful thing it once was, and more a utilitarian act. I read with a very specific, pragmatic purpose in mind: to solve a specific problem, to understand a specific thing, or sometimes just because I stumble across something that seems so randomly interesting in the moment for me that I make it part of my procrastination and read it instead of doing the thing I should be doing. That is about as close as I get to reading for fun.
In the years since—I’m not quite sure when—the habit slipped. The change was subtle. I became busier. I started scrolling on my phone before bed instead of reading. My attention began to wander every few pages. What did it matter if I read less?
That’s how Horowitch put it, and I recognized myself in there.
The new and up-to-date information often seems more immediately useful and relevant to the current context of my life. And in some ways it is.
But in some ways it also lacks that timeless wisdom, a sense of which is often all that’s left after reading a book.
And I’m “producing” so much text with LLMs nowadays (I’m not calling it writing), and writing so much less, that I sometimes wonder where that will lead me.
For one thing, I have this sense since a long time that I want to pick up writing more again. That I should. My imperfect and flawed and poor writing. My commitment to prolific practice, which nowadays mostly makes me feel embarassed when I think of it.
But something in me tells me that it is an important time to write. And to read actual literature, written by people who care far too much about words and stories.
Now with the polished AI content that’s everywhere, I find the imperfection of my ESL writing even more charming. I miss the wrestling with words. I do feel like it’s something worth preserving and honing, if for no other reason as to not let my brain atrophy into some version of Claude-thinking, which—as impressive as it is—somehow has a different shape than my own thinking. And even though it is more powerful and all-knowing, it doesn’t fit me as well as my own thinking fits me.