Paul Graham Essay Responses

The Need to Read - (link)

The Journey into Writing and Reading

I am still a beginner in the art of writing. Although I have written words all my life throughout school, I don’t believe writing was something that I ever thought of as an important skill to learn. But reading was definitely something that I was very good at, and I read a lot of books. Mostly sci-fi and fantasy, but the occasional non-fiction books that became more interesting to me as I grew older.

So when I read PG’s essay on the need to read, I completely agree, but his reasons to read are new reasons to me. Those would not be the reasons I would think we need to read. To me, the first things that come to mind are to explore your imagination and creativity. When I read things, especially the fiction books, my mind is able to create worlds and see things so vividly, almost better than my eyes could.

The Power of Reading

I now think about this reading in the sense that it can be helpful to learn to write as well, which is the new journey I am embarking on. To help craft and sharpen my thinking. Often times, I run wild with imagination, but when attempting to describe them to people, I struggle. But is the art of writing almost in the same way as the art of translating, enslaving the imagination into the mere form of text? Where in my mind there were these amazing and magical thoughts and emotions, by putting them into text, I would be limiting them to a lesser form.

Writing as a Form of Magic

Again, I would counter and say that my inability as a writer is the problem, not the process of capturing these ideas. Think about it, for example, how some amazing writers are able to invoke these emotions in millions of people that read the text. These are the true magicians, as they are able to bottle the genie in the lamp. While people who are not skilled at the magic of writing are unable to fully capture the elusive genie in the lamp.

But fear not, because just the mere fact that you are able to have these imaginative thoughts is a good sign for the art of learning to write is easier than the art of learning to imagine.

The Laziness of Modern Consumption

The other point I wanted to make was that people are now so lazy in their forms of consumption. Might need to look into the science of this, but I would think that people that are watching TV, or movies are using less or different parts of their brain than when reading. There is less to imagine because when you watch something, a director has chosen the look, color, setting, tone, music, and mood of the scene, while reading a book your brain is creating all that in the background, even if you don’t even realize it is doing it.

Although it is good to appreciate the art form that is moving pictures but also good to acknowledge the need for our society to read books as well. I believe reading books is on a decline and hope that we can bring it back.