Reading Habits and Curiosity

At this point, a few months in, I can say I have developed a habit for reading physical books. Here is my bookshelf that I update weekly. I read most every day for at least an hour or so. The content changes, as I bounce between novels, biographies, and historical works. But the act, the me sitting down and picking up a book to read, that is starting to feel constant (like my writing habit).

I am now able to power through multiple books a week. There is no prize for quantity, as everyone goes at their own pace. In fact, there are no real prizes at all. The only prize are the stories and energy boosts I get from reading about the past in hopes of creating a better future.

Each book leaves me feeling a very certain type of way. Today, this morning, I read about Pablo Escobar. Last week I read about Universal Basic Income and the Apollo 8 mission. I also read a lot about taxes.

Sound random?

It kind of is! But so am I. And what I read is really a manifestation of my curiosities and priorities. I read multiple books at the same time to try and maximize the number of collisions I run into on a recurring basis. The more stories I have the larger surface area I can loop into my decision making. And I find the ability to abstract and synthesize complex concepts – THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD – into daily conversations to be empowering and interesting.

I am a very curious person. I know that, with some confidence, mainly because as I write this piece I wonder how I should be thinking about this meta-concept of curiosity. I really have no idea how I rank on the leaderboard of curious people. My ranking has been anecdotally determined via the bubble of my relative peer group. Perhaps my cohort is biased, perhaps I surround myself with “not-curious people.” I ask lots of questions and maybe this leads me to finding friends who do too…or do not?

These disclaimers and qualifiers apply to every situation. And that is why I love reading books. Books are long. They have room for details that blog posts leave out. Details make stories amazing.

I hope to continue reading books for a long time. The world’s library is endless, let’s hope my curiosity is too!