/home

/who am I to judge?

Well to be honest this post is also a reminder to myself. So I with high possibility no better than anybody that comes across this page.
Why is that? Well, to be honest I do think having other things to do and living in a somewhat fast paced world with lots and lots of activity and easy to get dopamine - it is hard to pick up the book that is laying around since forever.

/why you should still commit to reading

For me I came back into reading during the last holiday, where I honestly had a hard time of shutting down, reducing things I did for uni, just slow down the pace a little. However I found that the books I had packed did help me a whole lot with this. After a hard time for the first few hours of keeping myself focused on the book, picking the story and characters back up, not getting sidetracked by some random thought. I managed to get involved with the book I was reading. I dove straight into the world, imagined the scenery, the words spoken by the characters, the feelings of them. Over all I just had a good expierience while reading and on day 4 I did just absorb the letters. I paved through the book not even noticing how the time passed. I reached flow state.

/how does it benefit me or you?

after the first days I had finished the book I wanted to finish for sure during the break. I was sad that I had not yet bought the follow up. I had to switch up the book I was reading, but it was totally fine. Even if I had commited to a total genre-switch because of this. I went from the witcher saga straight to a sci-fi novel. Quite the switch I guess. But for me it was alright. It went just like at the start, where I had some issues letting myself go and dive into the book. I read while it took me active concentration to maintain myself reading. However after about an hour I was already immersed into the world, the bodymods, the flickering lights, the dark atmosphere of the dystopian world. I was watching the main character from right behind.
What does this tell me?
I felt like through reading my perception of everything just slowed down a little bit. I was not able to double the speed of the book through holding down my finger to the edge of the screen.
I was not able to speed up the process. I had to read the lines word for word. Think about them actively. Noticed the wording and was amazed by how deeply and well the author has described the situation. He painted a picture in my imagination.
It fascinated me that every person that has ever read or will ever read this book has their own version of the story and characters in their head.
It made me concentrate and be less likely to loose focus. This is what I noticed after the holidays. I was able to sit still, focus and keep the focus up for longer. Even if my - watch out, buzzword - “attention span” was pretty fine, I had still noticed some kind of improvement.

/I fell in love with reading again

I feel like these expieriences made me move throughout my day at a steady pace. Not like before where I was rushing in some phases and when I got a break I kind of stopped everything and made no more progress. And on top of that read some great books that I have always wanted to read, which I had already bought. Scientific literature, books about my studies, fantasy, sci-fi. I felt like all of them built a network in my brain and I saw some parrallels. This might be to abstract of a though to fully understand this connection, but I wanted to share this regardlessly.

Go and read that book that you always planned to read.