Bookworm

When I was a kid, I loved books. Now that I’m an adult, I still do. But now, I understand a little more about myself, which means I understand a little more about why I love books so much.

A realization you start to have as you get older and more socially aware is this: You can’t just talk about anything with just anyone. Whatever topics you’re most passionate about, chances are good that the majority of people around you don’t share that passion. If you’re really into the history of aviation, then at best you might be able to tell an interesting story or two before people’s eyes glaze over. They have the stomach for a quick visit to your world, but people have their own interests and most won’t overlap perfectly with yours.

And that’s only for emotionally uncontroversial topics! If people aren’t into Colonial-era history or board games or whatever, at least the only emotion they tend to exhibit is boredom. But there are plenty of topics that people get downright mad about. Even (especially!) if they don’t know anything about that topic.

Imagine that you’re really into Australian botany. You think the plants from down under are really rad and you’ve been reading about them and studying them your whole life. You know as much about the topic as just about any other expert; you might be in the top 1,000 people in the world in terms of your knowledge on this. Then one day, you start to tell someone about a cool Australian flower. You’re sort of always prepared for people to not think this stuff is as cool as you, but still, you think about it a lot and you want to talk about it, so you test the waters with a casual acquaintance. How would you feel if instead of reacting with feigned interest or unhidden boredom, they instead got angry? They not only completely disagreed with you about everything you said, but they told you that only a horrible person would have even said what you’d said in the first place?

I would imagine you’d be confused! Especially if it was clear this person had never read even a single thing about Australian botany. But they know where Australia is, and they know what plants are, so they refuse to acknowledge that there’s any gap at all in your respective knowledge bases.

This is a tangent, but: The plural of anecdote is not data. You don’t become an expert on a topic just by hearing words associated with that topic enough times. Listening to pundits on the news argue about whether the space program is a good use of the federal budget doesn’t make you an expert in rocket science, no matter how many times you do it. It’s just noise, and noise doesn’t make you an expert just because you listened to a lot of it.

So, that’s the rub. The more of an expert on a particular topic you become, by actually reading and studying primary sources and refining your ideas in a forum that’s meaningful and progressively developmental, the fewer and fewer people can meaningfully converse with you on that topic. Either they’re too bored to care, or they’re aggressively, angrily ignorant and take offense to things that no person who understood the topic would take offense to. (That isn’t to say that all people with the same level of knowledge always agree, but being able to disagree meaningfully and calmly because you understand the topic is worlds apart from angry, ignorant screaming.)

When you get to that point, you read books.

Books are a way to have that conversation. To engage your mind in a calm but passionate way. To learn about the topic while still having space in your own mind for discourse. You might not be able to communicate with the author in real time, but you can explore the ideas at whatever pace you like. You can write down thoughts as you go, you can research and return, you can even write ideas and arguments of your own in longer form. You can disagree with the book! Or parts of it – you don’t have to just take it as gospel. But there’s no anger in the disagreement; the book doesn’t yell back, even if you do. The parts of your brain wired to react strongly to social danger as a threat to your tribal status are calmed somewhat by the lack of a breathing face, replaced by abstract words.

I love those conversations. I love that chance to open and engage my mind. As much as I love people, there are simply some parts of my brain that aren’t for 99% of them. But give me a book and an evening, and that part of my brain will be very happy.