Stress acts capriciously on our inner landscapes. What seems easy, comfortable to do, in times we consider normal becomes fraught in times of tension. Daily burdens can take on new weight, contours, and the requirements of coping change accordingly. When it sometimes feels that civilization itself is under threat, what constitutes useful response takes on meanings and demands that have no stable context.
What do we read in the face of chaos?
Because reading is not one thing, but a practice that sprawls through our lives like water underground, our assessment can become fragmented. Giving ourselves permission to read what we normally would is an issue. Is it responsible, we might ask ourselves, to read for pleasure when the world is about to be set afire? Shouldn’t what we read be contributive to our choices of resistance? Does that brick-thick epic fantasy constitute a betrayal of civic responsibility when the reality of oppression presses up against us?
All these questions, while valid, are born out of a reservoir of fight-or-flight impulses which, while understandable, are not useful in the longrun. In order to be effective we have to be sane and in order to be sane we must take care not to let the world diminish us. Reading, unlike most other forms of entertainment, expands us, instructs us, allows us the space to assess and grow and, eventually, to cope. In the face of everything, it can be our best support for sanity and identity.
Naturally, we rarely regard it this way, but for the committed reader this should not sound alien. Reading, especially fiction, is an empathy-builder. Inhabiting other lives through story connects us, allows us multiple perspectives, shows us lives not our own and therefore gives us connections we may not find elsewhere. Fiction can facilitate deeper readings in history and, indeed, current events.
Not that the focus of our reading won’t change somewhat. In order to deal with the times it is important to know them. But we need not, nor should we, abandon what we’ve been reading to take up a single thread of informational reading that allows for nothing else. Aesthetics matter. Art matters.
It may be tempting to turn away from what might seem trivial or self-indulgent, but so much of what we’ve been reading informs who we are, and above all we must have a care not to damage that because of the assaults of a world that no longer makes sense the way it once did. Read novels. Read histories. Read science. Read that which lights the synapses and sets the imagination dancing. That is what we survive for. Keep open your awareness of what is happening, read that which explains or gives hope, but do not close yourself off from all the rest. When the time comes, you want to bring all of you to the challenge, and that means all of what makes you.
Reading With Intent
Stress acts capriciously on our inner landscapes. What seems easy, comfortable to do, in times we consider normal becomes fraught in times of tension. Daily burdens can take on new weight, contours, and the requirements of coping change accordingly. When it sometimes feels that civilization itself is under threat, what constitutes useful response takes on meanings and demands that have no stable context.
What do we read in the face of chaos?
Because reading is not one thing, but a practice that sprawls through our lives like water underground, our assessment can become fragmented. Giving ourselves permission to read what we normally would is an issue. Is it responsible, we might ask ourselves, to read for pleasure when the world is about to be set afire? Shouldn’t what we read be contributive to our choices of resistance? Does that brick-thick epic fantasy constitute a betrayal of civic responsibility when the reality of oppression presses up against us?
All these questions, while valid, are born out of a reservoir of fight-or-flight impulses which, while understandable, are not useful in the longrun. In order to be effective we have to be sane and in order to be sane we must take care not to let the world diminish us. Reading, unlike most other forms of entertainment, expands us, instructs us, allows us the space to assess and grow and, eventually, to cope. In the face of everything, it can be our best support for sanity and identity.
Naturally, we rarely regard it this way, but for the committed reader this should not sound alien. Reading, especially fiction, is an empathy-builder. Inhabiting other lives through story connects us, allows us multiple perspectives, shows us lives not our own and therefore gives us connections we may not find elsewhere. Fiction can facilitate deeper readings in history and, indeed, current events.
Not that the focus of our reading won’t change somewhat. In order to deal with the times it is important to know them. But we need not, nor should we, abandon what we’ve been reading to take up a single thread of informational reading that allows for nothing else. Aesthetics matter. Art matters.
It may be tempting to turn away from what might seem trivial or self-indulgent, but so much of what we’ve been reading informs who we are, and above all we must have a care not to damage that because of the assaults of a world that no longer makes sense the way it once did. Read novels. Read histories. Read science. Read that which lights the synapses and sets the imagination dancing. That is what we survive for. Keep open your awareness of what is happening, read that which explains or gives hope, but do not close yourself off from all the rest. When the time comes, you want to bring all of you to the challenge, and that means all of what makes you.
And in the words of Douglas Adams, DON’T PANIC.
Share this:
Like this:
Related
Proximal Eye