There was a time when books were just there. In the house, at school, tablet (they flop na flop). You'd pick one up because it was raining, or the TV wasn't working, or you were avoiding something. Now? Now I scroll. I watch. I listen to podcasts about reading instead of actually reading.
And I'm not alone. Most of the guys I know, we're not reading like we used to. Not because we don't want to, but because something shifted.
Here's what I've noticed: when you stop reading, you start thinking smaller. Not immediately, but gradually. Your vocabulary shrinks. You repeat the same phrases. You find yourself saying "capital punishment" when you mean "corporal punishment" and then wondering why everyone's looking at you weird.
It's not just about knowing big words. It's about having the space to think through things properly. Books give you that. They force you to sit with an idea for more than 30 seconds. They make you follow someone else's logic, even when it's uncomfortable.
And when you don't have that, you start accepting whatever narrative shows up first. You become easier to convince; and harder to convince at the same time. You believe things because they sound right, not because you've actually thought them through.
The thing is, I don't think guys like me are anti-reading. We're just not finding the right stuff. Or we're finding it and not making space for it.
When I was younger, I read whatever was around. Sports stories, mysteries, things about people who did interesting things. Now everything feels like it's either trying to sell me something or teach me a lesson I didn't ask for. And the stuff that's actually good? I don't hear about it from my friends. I hear about it from people who already read a lot.
There's also this thing where we think reading has to be a whole event. Like you need to set aside an hour, find a quiet spot, have your coffee just right. Mais non. Sometimes you read on the bus. Sometimes you listen to a book while you're walking. Sometimes you read three pages before you fall asleep and that's enough for the day.
And here's the thing that I keep thinking about: we're influenced by what our friends care about. If your friends are all watching the same shows, you're probably watching them too. If they're talking about a book, you'll probably pick it up. But most of my friends aren't talking about books. We talk about work, about football, about what's happening on nzui-manto's page. That's fine; but it means we're not pushing each other toward reading the way we push each other toward other things.
I've seen it work the other way. When one person in a group starts reading something interesting, suddenly everyone's curious. Not because they're trying to be smart, but because the conversation around it is good. They want to be part of that.
So a few things I've been thinking about.
First, stop treating reading like a moral test. You're not a better person because you read. You're just someone who reads. That's it.
Second, we need more people writing about the stuff we actually care about; in words that you and I use every day. Like write but use the nah's and the chai's. Stories about our struggles, our relationships, our families, our language. Not just success stories and advice columns (message to the Facebook guys).
Third, be more intentional about what you put in front of your friends. Not in a preachy way. More like; hey, this was good, check am out. Sometimes that's enough.
The real issue isn't that we're not reading. It's that we're not thinking as much as we could be. Reading is just one way to do that; but it's a good one. It gives you access to other people's brains, other ways of seeing things. It makes you slower to judge and quicker to understand.
I'm not going to suddenly start reading 30 books a year. That's not realistic. But I am going to pay more attention to what I'm consuming. Make space for things that make me think, even if it's just a few pages a day.
Because the alternative is staying exactly where I am. Et ça, non.
Loading...