Tsundoku.
A Japanese world that literally means "reading pile".
However, it translates to more than that. It's a habit. It's actually a tendency to buy books that you never end up reading. And you might think that's not a good thing, but you'd be surprised. There is a beauty in pile of books, stacked around your home, surrounding you like a warm blanket - even when you don't read them.
How so ? It reminds you that you still have much to read and learn. That in life, there is always next thing to discover. Something more to unravel, and that there are always pages you can turn.
We are guilty of this. We browse through a book store, and buy a book that jumps at us, with every intention of reading it later. But life is just too busy. Life is too fast-paced. And sometimes, we barely have the intention or the energy to read.
What we end up having is a stack of books, unread, scattered around some corners, a reminder of our guilt and neglect. Rest assured, there's nothing to feel guilty about at all. You just have to look at it differently.
The Power of "Antilibrary"
Yes, there's an actual world for it. In his best selling book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Impeccable, author and statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb argues that an antilibrary is actually something that can benefit you. The reality is, unread books have just as much value as the ones we've read. Taleb sites legendary Italian writer, Umberto Eco as an example. The prolific writer famously owned a personal library, having more than 30,000 books.
Did he read them all ? Well, no. But that wasn't the point.
Many people were impressed by the number of books he owned. They thought that the staggering amount of literature he read was the reason why he was so knowledgeable and successful. But the library was not built to feed his ego.
In truth, Eco's expansive library was a testament to quite the opposite - his humility about the things he didn't knew but craved to learn. It consistently reminded him of his vicarious desire for learning. It kept him curious, hungry, and passionate to know more.
And though you may not amass the same amount of books he had, that growing pile unread literature can do the same for you.
As Taleb intones:
A Japanese world that literally means "reading pile".
However, it translates to more than that. It's a habit. It's actually a tendency to buy books that you never end up reading. And you might think that's not a good thing, but you'd be surprised. There is a beauty in pile of books, stacked around your home, surrounding you like a warm blanket - even when you don't read them.
 |
| A simple pile of books |
How so ? It reminds you that you still have much to read and learn. That in life, there is always next thing to discover. Something more to unravel, and that there are always pages you can turn.
We are guilty of this. We browse through a book store, and buy a book that jumps at us, with every intention of reading it later. But life is just too busy. Life is too fast-paced. And sometimes, we barely have the intention or the energy to read.
What we end up having is a stack of books, unread, scattered around some corners, a reminder of our guilt and neglect. Rest assured, there's nothing to feel guilty about at all. You just have to look at it differently.
The Power of "Antilibrary"
Yes, there's an actual world for it. In his best selling book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Impeccable, author and statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb argues that an antilibrary is actually something that can benefit you. The reality is, unread books have just as much value as the ones we've read. Taleb sites legendary Italian writer, Umberto Eco as an example. The prolific writer famously owned a personal library, having more than 30,000 books.
 |
| The Black Swan - Book by Nicholas Taleb |
Did he read them all ? Well, no. But that wasn't the point.
Many people were impressed by the number of books he owned. They thought that the staggering amount of literature he read was the reason why he was so knowledgeable and successful. But the library was not built to feed his ego.
In truth, Eco's expansive library was a testament to quite the opposite - his humility about the things he didn't knew but craved to learn. It consistently reminded him of his vicarious desire for learning. It kept him curious, hungry, and passionate to know more.
And though you may not amass the same amount of books he had, that growing pile unread literature can do the same for you.
As Taleb intones:
"A private library is not an ego-boosting appendage but a research tool.
Read books are far less valueable than the unread ones. The library must contain as much of what you don't know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real estate market allows you to put there.
You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly.
Indeed the more you know, the larger rows of the unread books."
You may want to read every good book that is published, but that is not possible as Eco himself calculated the number of books you can read in your lifetime. 25,200 - one everyday from the age 10 to 80.
We overestimate our knowledge but underestimate the things we don't know.
We live in a culture that prizes knowledge above everything else. Society has programmed us to believe that the more we know, the better our chances of success, the better our standing in life.
Taleb additionally writes:
"We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended. It is an ornament that allows the tendency to offend Eco's library sensibility by focusing on the known is a human bias that extends to our mental operations."
But this is your lack of knowledge that pushes you towards success. It is your curiosity and the deep desire to now that change in your perspective, that fuels your motivation. The most successful in life are those who don't stop learning, and who never want to stop learning.
It's called the art of Intellectual humility. The courage to admit, "I don't know."
And if your shelves contain more books than you ever read, then you should be proud. For it means your thirst for knowledge is much greater than the desire to prove your knowledge.
Those stacks of unread books should not guilt you. Instead, you should look to them as a reminder. You should cherish them as a bunch of old friends. Because those books are not trophies of all that you've acquired. They're the signs of how much more better you can still be. They are your beacons for potentiality. And to be honest, that makes all the difference in the world.
Comments
Post a Comment