How to read books

Neera

I am so puzzled by my own reading habits.

For a start, I read six or seven books at a time. I always have a pile of books by my bedside table, usually from different genres, and I pick which one to read based on my mood.

I don’t read from where the bookmark is, but I flick through the book and start reading whichever page or verse catches my attention.

Very soon, I am looking for a pencil, which I have several in the near vicinity, to underline words or phrases or sometimes whole paragraphs.

I skip paragraphs or sometimes pages, but then there are sentences that I read and reread, until their beauty sink in my soul, leaving me in eternal happiness.

At this point, invariably, I stop reading, close the book and start thinking. Sometimes that thinking leads to writing.

The result is that the book doesn’t get read.

I am envious of my writer buddies, who can read books from cover to cover within a week.

Why can’t I stick with a book, finish it and then move on to the next one?

Do I have attention deficiency?

Am I unique in my approach to reading multiple books, or are there others like me?

The goal of reading determines how you read. 

Reading the latest Danielle Steel novel is not the same as reading Plato.

If you’re reading for entertainment or information, you will read a lot differently than if you are reading to increase understanding.

“Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed and some few to be chewed and digested.” — Francis Bacon.

While many people are proficient in reading for information and entertainment, very few are willing to improve their ability to read for knowledge.

Mortimer Adler, an American philosopher, educator, and popular author, literally wrote a book on reading — How To Read A Book.

Adler identifies four levels of reading:

  1. Elementary Reading
  2. Inspectional Reading
  3. Analytical Reading
  4. Syntopical Reading

Elementary Reading is a basic reading skill taught in elementary schools.

Inspectional Reading involves systematic skimming and superficial reading and gives you the gist of things. Sometimes this is all we want or need.

Analytical Reading is thorough reading.

Syntopical Reading, also known as comparative reading, represents the most demanding and difficult reading of all. It involves reading many books on the same subject and comparing and contrasting the ideas, vocabulary, and arguments.

This task is undertaken by identifying relevant passages, translating the terminology, framing and ordering the questions that need answering, defining the issues, and conversing with the responses.

The goal is not to achieve an overall understanding of any particular book but rather to understand the subject and develop a deep fluency.

This is all about identifying and filling in your knowledge gaps.

Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance, was well-read, smart, critical, and possessed a tendency to write in a personal tone — with references to and reflections on — his own thoughts and his own life.

Montaigne considered himself a pretty lazy reader. “I leaf through now one book, now another,’ he wrote,’ without order and a plan, by disconnected fragments.”

His only rule in reading was to pursue pleasure. “If I encounter difficulties in reading,’ he wrote, ‘I do not gnaw my nails over them; I leave them there. I do nothing without gaiety.”

Doris Lessing, a British-Zimbabwean novelist, wrote:

“There is only one way to read, which is to browse in libraries and bookshops, picking up books that attract you, reading only those, dropping them when they bore you, skipping the parts that drag — and never, never reading anything because you feel you ought, or because it is part of a trend or a movement. Remember that the book which bores you when you are twenty or thirty will open doors for you when you are forty or fifty — and vice-versa. Don’t read a book out of its right time for you.”

Patricia Lockwood, an American poet, and essayist have put it this way:

“There’s a way of reading that is like writing. You feel in collaboration… You have a pen in your hand, you’re going along in a way that’s, like, half creating it as you go. And you’re also strip-mining it for anything you can use… you’re sifting for what could be gold.”

I am feeling better now. 

I am not the only one with weird reading habits. A lot of people have different reading habits.

What are your reading habits? Do you start a book and don’t put it down till you have finished it? Or do you read with a pencil in hand and write on the margins.

Or maybe you use one of Adler’s four stages of reading a book.

Drop me a line in the comments section.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Consolations of growing old

Neera

When I turned forty I thought that the awkward young woman in me will now take departure and an experienced wise woman will take its place. After decades of waiting, I have discovered that the young woman in me has long gone but the wise woman still hasn’t made an appearance.

What has arrived instead is an old woman?

Rather than being disappointed, I like her.

I have lost fifty percent of my hair, forty percent of my memory, thirty percent of my eyesight, twenty percent of my hearing and ten percent of my height (I have shrunk at least two inches), but I can assure you that my gains still outweigh my losses.

On the surface, I have gained weight around my waist and wrinkles around my eyes. But what I gained inside makes it worthwhile.

No one can list the consolation of being an older woman any better than the comedian Andy Rooney who said, “As I grow in age, I value women who are over forty most of all. Here are just a few reasons why:

A woman over forty will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, “What are you thinking?” She doesn’t care what you think.

If a woman over forty doesn’t want to watch the game, she doesn’t sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do. And, it’s usually something more interesting.

A woman over forty knows herself well enough to be assured in who she is, what she is, what she wants and from whom. Few women past the age of forty give a hoot what you might think about her or what she’s doing.

Women over forty are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won’t hesitate to shoot you, if they think they can get away with it.

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it’s like to be unappreciated.

A woman over forty has the self-assurance to introduce you to her women friends. A younger woman with a man will often ignore even her best friend because she doesn’t trust the guy with other women. Women over forty couldn’t care less if you’re attracted to her friends because she knows her friends won’t betray her.

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over forty. They always know.

A woman over forty looks good wearing bright red lipstick. This is not true of younger women. Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over forty is far sexier than her younger counterpart.

Older women are forthright and honest. They’ll tell you right off if you are a jerk if you are acting like one! You don’t ever have to wonder where you stand with her.

Yes, we praise women over forty for a multitude of reasons.

Virginia Woolf, on the other hand, highlighted a completely different benefit of old age.

“As one gets older one has a greater power through reason to explain; and that this explanation blunts the sled-hammer force of the blow. I think this is true because though I still have the peculiarity that I receive these sudden shocks, they are now always welcome; after the first surprise, I always feel instantly that they are particularly valuable. And so I go on to suppose that the shock-receiving capacity is what makes me a writer.”

Woolf later used this insight into a beautiful line from Mrs. Dalloway:

“The compensation of growing old…was simply this; that the passions remain as strong as ever, but one has gained – at last! – the power which adds the supreme flavor to the existence, – the power of taking hold of experience, of turning it around, slowly, in the light.”

Do as Kenkō did

Neera

Sometimes our writing is not coherent.

It happens to me a lot.

Little insights come in snippets, and don’t matter how much I try; I can’t seem to connect those ideas into one coherent piece.

It frustrates me a lot.

However, over time I have learned to accept it.

One of my writing mentors once told me, “Writing is receiving. Receive as it comes.”

Then I learned about Yoshida Kenkō.

I first read about Yoshida Kenkō in Isabel Huggan’s memoir Belonging.

Isabel Huggan was trying to finish her memoir but was frustrated for not finding a way to organize her work.

In the last month of writing about her life, Huggan stayed in a friend’s house in Tasmania while her friend was away. She thought isolation might help her structure her book. But she kept on struggling for days, not getting any solution to string together a collection of stories from her life.

Then one night, she spotted a book in her host’s bookshelf — Tsurezuregusa (Essays In Idleness) by Yoshida Kenkō — and she found her answer.

Yoshida Kenkō was a Japanese writer and monk of the fourteenth century who wrote the most studied works of medieval Japanese literature.

While working on Tsurezuregusa, he wrote his thoughts in 243 fragments of varying lengths.

Kenkō desperately tried to connect those essays in some coherent manner.

When he couldn’t do that, he just pasted them on the wall of his cottage in frustration.

He followed a random model of the composition called ‘follow the brush’ — a form congenial to Japanese writers and readers who felt it was a “less dishonest” method to present their thought than trying to connect them using fictional elements.

Kenkō didn’t try to impose any pattern on his pure and honest experience. Neither did he try to transform reality. Instead, he left each thought as it is.

Something a relaxed reader finds more enjoyable to follow and appreciate. In moving from one subject to another, a reader can take joy in tracing subtle links between them.

Making patterns is left to the open-minded reader, allowing an infinite number of variations to occur.

“The most precious thing in life is its uncertainty, in everything, no matter what it may be, uniformity is undesirable. Leaving something incomplete makes it interesting and gives one feeling there is room for growth and improvement. The impermanence of its state provides a moving framework towards appreciation, towards life.” — Kenkō

Isabel Huggan decided to abandon her futile attempt to connect her stories and follow Kenkō’s method.

Later that same night, awake because of the noise of wind and rain slapping against the glass, Huggan looked around for something else to read.

She found Promises, Promises, a book of essays on literature and psychoanalysis by Adam Phillips. And it confirmed what Kenkō suggested six centuries ago.

In a chapter on clutter, I read how a teenage boy dresses each morning by throwing his clothes in a pile behind him and then picking what he is going to wear with his eyes closed. Clutter invites us to make meaning in the absence of pattern. Clutter tantizes us, lures us into a relationship with material in a way that is far more seductive than discernible order. In clutter, you may not be able to find what you are looking for, but you may find something else instead. Clutter may not be about the way we hide things from ourselves but about the way we make ourselves look for things. It is as if a self-imposed hide-and-seek.

— Adam Phillips

Both authors reached the same conclusion.

Sometimes there is no way to put the pieces together.

“It is typical of the unintelligent man to insist on assembling complete sets of everything. Imperfect sets are better.” — Kenkō

Maybe this is what we need to do as well.

Photo by Joshua Medway on Unsplash

Santiago – a city of painted crosses

Neera

I often wonder what motivates a traveler to pick her destination. Of course, television and advertisements play a big part, but sometimes the place itself summons people; otherwise, there was no reason for me to visit South America.

The only thing I knew about Chile when I first set foot in its capital city was that it is a thin strip of land that ends somewhere near Antarctica, literally at the end of the world.

I had never heard of Patagonia or the Fjord of islands in the South or the Atacama Desert in the South.

Yet the desire to see it all was so strong that a visit to three countries ended up mostly visiting Chile.

LAN airways’ flight landed at Santiago at 7:45 pm local time. Just before the plane stopped on the runway, I realized that one of my earrings had come off while sleeping. That generated a frantic search. I looked under the seats, in the pile of blankets, and at the back row, but to no avail.

Without disclosing it to my husband, I abandoned the search and walked with him through the airport’s long corridors only to get behind a wrong line at the immigration check.

We needed to be in a separate line to pay the reciprocity tax.

Payment could be made by credit card only. Two young guys behind us, barely out of college, only had cash. My husband paid for them on his credit card. They were profusely thankful, and so were we. We got some cash for the taxi fare.

It took us three hours to get out of the airport and another hour and a half to get to the hotel, which was way out of the city center, in Las Condes, Región. It was close to midnight when we checked in.

The hotel room had 180-degree views from the roof to floor glass windows. We dumped our backpacks on the bed and went out looking for food. The hotel was new and didn’t have late-night room service.

There was hardly any chance of finding anything open at that hour, but the hotel receptionist told us that a pizza place, two blocks down, was usually open until 2:00 AM.

We set out to find it. It was a suburban area, we weren’t expecting anyone on the streets, but there were plenty of people up and about. I could even hear music that too in English. For a Spanish speaking country, everywhere they were playing English songs.

We found the pizza place and the pizza was delicious but we couldn’t finish it. The waitress, out of habit, packed the rest of it.

There was no point taking it back to the hotel because breakfast was included, and we were going to be out and about the next day. I gave the box to a couple of men outside a shop where we stopped to buy water bottles. I couldn’t understand what they said, but the smile on their faces was worth the kind gesture I made.

Vertical Gardens

The next morning I had a good view from the room windows. The rooftop of the hotel restaurant had a striking roof garden. Once we went there for breakfast, we were greeted by the lush green vertical garden.

Garden at the rooftop, also visible is the vertical garden

We decided to take the metro to the city.

It was quite an experience.

Not being able to read Spanish signboards didn’t help. Which ticket to buy? How to describe the destination?

I asked a girl whether she could speak English. Luckily she did. She told us there were one-ride-tickets and multiple-ride- cards. We bought one ride ticket.

The train had fewer seats and more standing space. I stood by the middle pole when I opened my backpack to take out my reading glasses to read the map and left it half-open.

A lady buried in the crowd caught hold of my arm and gave me some stern instructions in Spanish. I couldn’t understand a word but understood what she meant. She wanted me to close my backpack. I thanked her and zipped my bag.

Moments later, a young man, stabbed me with his finger. He said something in Spanish but I didn’t understand. So he iterated it again, this time, with sign language.

Oh damn! Silly me!

He was telling me to carry my backpack in front.

So far, I was taking it easy. I was even carrying my money belt in the backpack carelessly tucked amongst the other knick-knacks.

I decided to wear it around my waist and empty the backpack of any valuables.

Foolishly I did that on the train in the full view of all commuters.

With iPhone in my hand, reading glasses around my neck, sunnies on my head, a money belt around my waist, a backpack with a spare jumper, water bottle, notepad, pens, and apples on my back, I was ready to see Santiago.

The next challenge was to figure out which station to get off. The hotel receptionist had circled off a station for us, closest to the city’s main attractions. When we showed that to a very helpful morning commuter on the train, he helped us to get off at the right station. When we got off, we were facing Santiago University.

The city center was nowhere in sight.

Plaza de Armas

Guided by the locals and a police officer, we found our way to Plaza de Armas, Santiago’s main square.

Like most of the Spanish towns, Santiago is also designed in a square grid pattern, with Plaza de Armas being the centerpiece.

We headed straight for the Santiago museum, only to find that all museums were closed on Mondays.

So were the gondolas in Metropolitan Park.

Basically, we couldn’t do anything.

We spent the day enjoying the lively street music and performances and local artists, roaming through the central market and having a peek at the Metropolitan Cathedral.

What stood out were the chess tables where anyone can go and have a game with very patient spectators watching over your shoulders.

Plaza de Armas, Santiago

Plaza de Armas, Santiago

Chess games at Plaza de Armas, Santiago

Metropolitan Cathedral

Built-in 1800 Metropolitan Cathedral is the main church for Chilean Catholics. The neoclassical cathedral has spectacular artwork on the ceiling.

Central Market

We wandered through the Mercado Central de Santiago (Central Market), which was full of craftwork. I particularly liked the wooden artifact. Many pieces had Indian influence. I wanted to buy the coasters but refrained. It was our first day, and I was already buying stuff.

Coffee with Legs

In downtown Santiago, a strange phenomenon not to be missed is cafe con piernas or “coffee with legs.” – where skimpily-clad waitresses serve coffee to well-suited businessmen. We managed to find one. It was called Haiti Café. Waitresses wore miniskirts, yellow tops, and unusually high heels sandals. Business people in suits stood at the high bar-style tables consuming tiny cups of coffee. I had hot chocolate, and Vipan had tea. We paid for the beverage, but hugs from waitresses were free.

The Chileans seemed to be obsessed with shoes.

Every second shop was selling shoes. Some streets around the plaza had six or seven shoe shops next to each other. One brand, Pizzeria, had multiple outlets in a single street, all selling the same shoes. Most of the sandals and even the boots had platform heals, some nine inches in height. I couldn’t imagine how anyone could even stand on those, let alone walk. But when I tried one, they were remarkably comfortable.

I found a pair I really liked, but I ended up not buying them. The shopkeeper wanted me to select another pair so that I could have two pairs for $20,000 (Chilean currency). While a single pair cost $17,000. How the hell was I going to fit two pairs of platform heel shoes in my suitcase.

I said goodbye to the shoes and walked away. My husband was relieved.

Probably the best way to see Santiago is Hop-On/ Hop-Off Bus

We bought tickets valid for two days. The bus has about 12 stops. Even in two days, we couldn’t see all of them all. Lucky for us, the starting point of the bus was at the mall Parque Arauco which was walking distance from our hotel.

Parque Arauco is Latin America’s most important mall where the best brands have their outlets. On top of that, it is a center of entertainment, with an open-air boulevard and excellent gastronomical choices.

San Cristobal Hill

It is the first stop off the bus. At 860 meters above sea level, San Cristobal Hill is the highest point in Santiago. There are two ways to get to it; you can walk or take the gondola. Our two day Hop On/Hop Off bus ticket came with free gondola passes, so we used that.

The area surrounding the hill is called Metropolitan Park, and it occupies 722 hectares. It is the largest in Chile. The sky was overcast, and the view was not very clear, but we still enjoyed the gondola ride. We were rewarded at the top with a 22-meters high statue of the Virgin Mary, an amphitheater, and a chapel.

Painted Crosses

This is something I haven’t seen anywhere else. Seems like Santiago artist like using crosses as a canvas. All the way down from the chapel, we came across several beautifully painted crosses. Some of them quite nice.

Funicular

We came down the San Cristobal Hill through the last functioning funicular of Santiago. It was an amazing experience. The slop is almost 75 degrees, and when the two railway cars were about to cross each other, it was quite a sight. A must-do thing while at San Cristobal Hill. Although sometimes funicular may not be working.

Food

I love taking photos of the fruit and veggies in other counties. They always look so much better. Have a look at the tomatoes and asparagus.

Despite the abundance of fresh produce, food in Chile is somewhat bland as few spices are used. On top of that, Chile has to fry everything. The beef, chicken, potatoes were all fried. Chile has the best walnuts in the world.

I traveled to Chile, Argentina, and Peru with my husband in November 2018. I will cover the trip over several posts.

Here is a list of some:

Lake District – Chile and Argentina

Valparaiso – a city where creativity is everywhere

Patagonia – Torres Del Paine

Patagonia – The end of the world

Creative mindset is the key

Neera

Rhonda was at a time in her life when she was facing challenges from every direction – business, relationships, family. That is when she stumbled across a book. Or to be more accurate, she says, it stumbled across her!

She is not exaggerating when she says that since that first night when a tattered printed transcript found it way to her (thanks to her daughter), her life has never been the same.

Once she read it and internalize its simple knowledge, her life immediately turned around. Her television production business started to go from strength to strength. Her income levels soared prodigiously. Relationships miraculously healed and marvelous new ones came pouring in from all directions.

This is a common experience for people who discover this book.

Rhonda is no other than Rhonda Byrne, the bestselling writer of the book “The Secret” and creator and executive producer of the movie of the same name.

The book literary changed her life.

The book is called “The Science of Getting Rich” and was written by
Wallace D. Wattles. It was first published in 1910.

I am a very conservative person and belong to a sceptical generation.
I wouldn’t recommend something which is not logical or without any scientific basis. The theories presented in this book more than a century ago, are mainstream now.

This book is behind my monumental change from competitive to creative mindset.

I urge you to do yourself a favour and download an electronic copy of the book here.

As you read it, be aware, as it was written almost 100 years ago. Some of the language is a little dated (or quaint) and you will need to come to it with an open mind and heart.

Rhonda got her movie crew to read and practice the teachings of the book while filming. Their collective energies to attract what they wanted made so many things possible for them which otherwise seemed impossible.

The main message of the book is:

There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe.

A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought.

Man can form things in his thought, and by impressing his thought upon formless substance can cause the thing he thinks about to be created.

In order to do this, man must pass from the competitive to the creative mind; otherwise he cannot be in harmony with the Formless Intelligence, which is always creative and never competitive in spirit. Man may come into full harmony with the Formless Substance by entertaining a lively and sincere gratitude for the blessings it bestows upon him.

Gratitude unifies the mind of man with the intelligence of Substance, so that man’s thoughts are received by the Formless. Man can remain upon the creative plane only by uniting himself with the Formless Intelligence through a deep and continuous feeling of gratitude.

Man must form a clear and definite mental image of the things he wishes to have, to do, or to become; and he must hold this mental image in his thoughts, while being deeply grateful to the Supreme that all his desires are granted to him. The man who wishes to get rich must spend his leisure hours in contemplating his Vision, and in earnest thanksgiving that the reality is being given to him. Too much stress cannot be laid on the importance of frequent contemplation of the mental image, coupled with unwavering faith and devout gratitude.

This is the process by which the impression is given to the Formless, and the creative forces set in motion.

The creative energy works through the established channels of natural growth, and of the industrial and social order. All that is included in his mental image will surely be brought to the man who follows the instructions given above, and whose faith does not waver. What he wants will come to him through the ways of established trade and commerce.

In order to receive his own when it shall come to him, man must be active; and this activity can only consist in more than filling his present place. He must keep in mind the Purpose to get rich through the realization of his mental image. And he must do, every day, all that can be done that day, taking care to do each act in a successful manner. He must give to every man a use value in excess of the cash value he receives, so that each transaction makes for more life; and he must so hold the Advancing Thought that the impression of increase will be communicated to all with whom he comes in contact.

The men and women who practice the foregoing instructions will certainly get rich; and the riches they receive will be in exact proportion to the definiteness of their vision, the fixity of their purpose, the steadiness of their faith, and the depth of their gratitude.

Although sounding speculative, this book is pragmatical; a practical manual. Stay with it. As Wattles himself says, trust and believe, whatever you want in life is right there waiting for you.

Daily Diary

Neera

The best writing project I ever took was to start a daily diary.

I have introduced to the Bullet Journal two years ago and I immediately fell in love with it.

Although initially, it was hard to remember to write every day I soon fell in a habit. At the end of the day, I had a beautiful log of all the things I did in that year – the places I visited, the projects I took, the dinners I cooked. I even knew who visited me and when what I did at work, what I shopped and what I ate in the restaurants.

I was so pleased with it that next year I decided to go a step further and instead of recording my day in bullet points, record them in prose. I bought a Paperblank diary with a beautiful intricate blue and silver pattern on the cover and wrote in it for the whole year. The diary went with me when I was on holiday or was traveling for work.

This year I bought an A5 size page-a-day diary and faithfully started recording my days in it. It is one activity I look forward to most in my day. It gives me the opportunity to reflect on what I did on the whole day. Was I productive or did I waste time? Was I happy or miserable? What was I grateful for? What are my plans for the next day, week or month?

My daily diary is giving meaning to my days. If I don’t record in it, I feel as if I have not lived that day.

Anais Nin, a writer who is known more for her quotes than any other writer, was a compulsive diary keeper. In her own words:

The period without the diary remains an ordeal. Every evening I want my diary as one wants opium.

This diary is my kief, hashish and opium pipe. This is my drug and my vice.

My diary seems to keep me whole.

If writing is your thing and you want to build a habit of writing daily, you must start keeping a daily diary.