Once upon not too long ago, I was asked to put down a certain book so that I might enjoy the company of my in-laws. True story this is. I complied by the request but the decision to abandon the company of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and join a petty conversations that concentrated on clothing and styles for wedding was infuriating to say the least.
Books make for a good company. Some are good, some are bad, some are excellent and some are penned by Chetan Bhagat or worse Ravinder Singh. We need sinners so we could appreciate the saints.
Growing up there were not many places I could gather information from, the school books were hand-me-downs. The school library for some inexplicable reason had three rows of ‘Three Men in a Boat’ and Jeeves series by P.G. Wodehouse, and tons of books that were probably donated by vernacular authors because their own relatives and friends would not have those.
Then one fine day a lot of changed for me. We were inundated with books of all kinds, sorts, colors and hue. So much so that our school had to construct a brand-new floor to accommodate all the books. I started small from Disney and then moved up all the way to Britannica where I had my first brush with my fav subject – the World War II.
Books were the only source of information; reliability, readability, or penmanship were not a matter of concern then. There were no reviews to enlighten you more about the author or to cloud your decision to go and buy a particular book.
And cometh the glut
When we have overload of information and total lack of attention. Everywhere we look at, even though, we mostly look at digital screens, our attention is being called at. For products, for services, for whatever the fuck. We simply have too much on our mind to do less than our ancestors did, our inventions of today have probably given less to the growth of mankind to any period during the last century.
For as much computing power as this computer I type on, they were able to send men on the moon. A gazillion times more powerful computer are running social media that is more toxic than a sewer of a small town in Uttar Pradesh.
This is precisely the reason I depend on books than ever before. From typography to algorithms, I find it prudent to follow a book that should provide structure to my learning process.
The most important part of learning is to admit that we are not knowledgeable about that particular subject. If we don’t know what we want, how can we go about searching for it over the world wide web. We would simply get lost. Well, I would. Hence, a book.
Whenever you feel like learning about a subject, search for relevant authors, read the reviews, ask around a few questions and then go for it. More often than not, you would come out more learned, more knowledgeable, hungrier and clamouring for more.