Importance of reading

Now we are going to touch on a topic for reflection so that we can take action in this regard. Normally we have heard the benefits of reading, almost everyone leans towards the enjoyment of it, the information we obtain from it, etc. All of them, those advantages, are repeated to us over and over again, and more or less we have already heard them and, some of us, we certainly take advantage of them for our benefit and for the benefit of those around us.

But now I want to tell you about another, more profound goodness that we have almost never been told about. The best of the benefits, I come to my own conclusions, is the internal management of language. When we are reading the great works of great authors (which, after all, is nothing but the result of the work of their mind, of their intelligence) we are actually mentally exercising ourselves to understand what we read, to enter into the game of their style and, as a result of this “forcing”, to make our own brain work as if stimulated by the order of these letters, by their writing.

After reading in a basic way (learning new words, understanding their meanings, understanding the meaning that the author wanted to give them, what is socially accepted, etc.), we must read or rather understand not the meanings, but what was really meant. To make a kind of metaliteracy, to give a meaning to the symbols used, to take the constructed metaphors further and to deduce or intuit what was meant. It may be that we don’t really get what the author meant, but we certainly find time and again that the finished work says much more than what the author meant. That makes it a classic. Homer and the great poets of antiquity continue to be read because we find in their lyrics new meanings that serve us and were not intended by them. Thus, the power of reading, the power of the reader, is independent of the work and the author, and this enhances them.

The exercise of reading will end up forcing our brains towards a better thinking and all this will result, it is true, in a better expression on our part, when it is our turn. We will achieve a better understanding of the world around us and that will result in a better speech on our part when we talk to others.

Reading is, for me and under this aspect, a kind of brain programming that makes us act in a better way. And our duty is, now that we understand this, to select the best software, the best writers, to program our brains with quality.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)