The Art Of Reading: Take It Slow

A very interesting article in the Guardian about the benefits of “slow reading":

So are we getting stupider? Is that what this is about? Sort of. According to The Shallows, a new book by technology sage Nicholas Carr, our hyperactive online habits are damaging the mental faculties we need to process and understand lengthy textual information. Round-the-clock news feeds leave us hyperlinking from one article to the next – without necessarily engaging fully with any of the content; our reading is frequently interrupted by the ping of the latest email; and we are now absorbing short bursts of words on Twitter and Facebook more regularly than longer texts.

Which all means that although, because of the internet, we have become very good at collecting a wide range of factual titbits, we are also gradually forgetting how to sit back, contemplate, and relate all these facts to each other. And so, as Carr writes, "we're losing our ability to strike a balance between those two very different states of mind. Mentally, we're in perpetual locomotion".

People were reading less even before the boon (or curse) of the internet. All the internet has accomplished is to accelerate the process, turning most of us into a gaggle of professional skimmers. Defenders claim more can be read in the same amount of time. In essence, volume is king. Time, valuable as it is, is to be commoditized, its benefits maximized.

I’ve suffered from this malady for a long time. I use to believe that I needed to cram my head with all the knowledge that I could get my hands on in the shortest possible time. I realize now how much time I wasted with such nonsensical thinking. I learned that acquiring knowledge for the sake of acquiring knowledge is pointless.

Knowledge needs purpose. What that purpose is depends on the individual: it could be internal, external, or both. For me it is a bit of both: internally, for self-improvement; and externally, so I can better understand the world. And the only way to do that is to process the knowledge. And this takes time. Skimming bypasses this process all together.

We need people to think, not just consume.

[via arts & letters daily]

Gee This Blog Sucks...

As everyone well knows, I’ve blogged very little om the past few years. Mostly, I’ve just lost all interest, contributed by the fact that my writing was increasingly becoming repetitive—hence boring. I know I have this blog, but I’ve written only 400 posts in nearly three years; when in my hey day I use to write over 500 posts a year.

I have also noticed that the quality of my writing has deteriorated exponentially. Just read posts from my old blogs (here and here). I swear I didn’t write any of it, but I did. What the hell happened?

Varnam Is Moving On Up

For those who don’t already know, JK has joined the cabal of do-gooders over at National Interest, hence his blog has a new address:

http://varnam.nationalinterest.in

Update your bookmarks and RSS readers accordingly. Congratulations to JK, this move will be a step-up in terms of more exposure for his blog. Just beware of the haters out there. Don’t let them get you down.

I'm Still Here Status

Nothing new to report from my end. Of late, I’m on an extended hiatus. Not doing much blogging as you can see – not one post for May, in fact! I’m reduced to updating my Facebook status and an occasional post on Twitter. I have stopped reading blogs altogether; but I am reading a lot, reverting to printed materials. You can say I’ve gone old school.

But I’ve made an exception for the latest issue of Pragati, the history issue, which was edited by JK Nair. It is very good, and I highly recommend it.

Pakistan's Humble Leaders?

Wit is a rare commodity these days, combine it with humor and it’s even a rarer find. KO fills both qualities amiably with this hilarious post, where he explains how Pakistan is becoming an egalitarian society:

Pakistan is turning out to be a very egalitarian society. Some of the new crop of politicians come from very humble beginnings, indeed. Sure, not all of them started out humble, but all of them have improved in leaps and bounds from their starting point. Not too many countries can boast of that, so here is a listing of our extremely egalitarian politicians:

Asif Ali Zardari, went from selling cinema tickets in black and second hand cars to political husband, First Mate to Benazir, than billionaire extraordinaire. Considering he never worked much, being busy with polo, cars, vacations, exile and jail, it's amazing how fast he went from zero to hero. Back in his heyday as a young man about town, he had his finger in every pie - today, he is the pie.

Nawaz Sharrif's family owned a smallish middling sized industrial concern, not doing too well - but after the military blessed the family their fortunes started rising on rockets. Today, his star is high up in the sky, hanging with the likes of Zardari and Saudi Kings. From not much money and land at all, Nawaz turned himself into a veritable landlord by acquiring land and contracts everywhere.

Sarcasm never sounded so good. Read the rest.

Bloggers Are Writers Too

JK has written a great post about the writing process, something I'm keenly interested in as well. JK says that we bloggers can benefit from a more disciplined approach to writing as practiced by professional writers like Orhan Pamuk, Suketu Mehta and Kathy Sierra, all of whom JK profiles. An important quote:

Pay attention to the structure of the post, spend time editing it and finally make it interesting to read.

Lessons I have repeatedly learned and forgotten (often within seconds of each other). It's hard enough to write something interesting on a daily basis that the blogosphere demands, but writing and then editing is a never-ending struggle for me. This is why I write so infrequently, and when I do, the most I can manage is a few paragraphs, often only a couple of sentences (that is why I like twitter and tumblr so much). Writing is not easy. I can take comfort in the fact that writing is not suppose to be easy-- even for professional writers!

There are two things in my mind that can make a blogger better: reading and writing Obvious, I know, but hear me out. It's no coincidence that good writers are often good readers. Good readers in that they not only read widely, but pick good books to read. Quality is important here. After all, reading John Grisham, Tom Clancy, cereal boxes, and People magazine will only take you so far. Not surprisingly, most writers read the classics. Classics are classics for a good reason, they are a fount of good writing. Bloggers should read more of them.

But reading takes time. Time is a precious commodity in our fast-paced culture, where bite-sized blog posts is all we have time to digest. We value doing many things as possible in the shortest span of time, hence the mantra: volume is more important than quality. I suffer from this problem acutely. I'm always obsessed with reading as many books as I can before I die, only realize that there was no way I was going to read all the books I wanted to read, even if I did nothing but read and live to 200. It's just not possible. So I have become more pickier in what I read. And instead of trying to read a book as fast as I can. I read slowly. Letting the author's word sink-in. To meditate on the books meaning. In my opinion, a good book cannot be read once, but twice, even thrice. Each time something new, absent in previous readings, comes to the surface.

The second part, of course, is writing. Reading provides a foundation, in that you learn what good writing is. Nevertheless, reading and writing are two different functions. I've read Charles Dickens or Jane Austen and wonder why I can't write like them. My writings are consistently filled with choppy sentences (or run-on sentences), grammar mistakes, misspellings, incoherence, or is downright banal. The only way to improve my writing, I find, is practice, practice, and more practice.