We Can't Become Human Without Reading
A book is a tool for knowing yourself. Literature heals, provides a powerful psychotherapeutic influence. Filled with meanings on many levels. How many times you re-read, so many new discoveries, thoughts and feelings will be revealed …
People stop thinking
when they stop reading.
Denis Diderot
If time can extinguish love and all other human feelings, as well as the very memory of a person, then for genuine literature
it creates immortality.
K. Paustovsky
Reading changes us forever. It is not a biological but a metaphysical mutation that occurs. Even though the human brain is not meant to read, it is being rebuilt to function in new ways.
The emergence of the written word is the main round of human evolution. Self-awareness and thinking are changing. In fact, literature has decided the fate of all mankind.
Moreover, a book can change the fate of everyone: take life uphill or into the abyss.
Gabriel García Márquez decided to become a writer when he read Franz Kafka's book The Metamorphosis. John Lennon had a love for Alice in Wonderland. Albert Einstein in his reflections went beyond the usual understanding of space and time thanks to the "Treatise on Human Nature" by D. Hume and created the Theory of Relativity. Marina Tsvetaeva was madly in love with Pushkin, especially "Eugene Onegin".
Reading is a brain revolution
Between 3500 and 3000 BC, the first information recording system emerged. An unknown genius invented the dashes "+" and "-" for accounting: who paid tithes to the treasury, and who did not. Then these characters quickly passed into cuneiform, and she - into the alphabet. They began to use him to write laws.
The next stage in the development of the written word is literacy training. To behave correctly, a person must be able to read the written laws. Universal literacy training begins. Now everyone can read the law: what can not be done in relation to another person and what will be the punishment for breaking the rules. People stopped seeing each other as enemies, because they felt that the law protects them from the attacks of other people. With the invention of writing, civilizations began to appear. Thanks to her, people gained the ability to live in big cities and to cooperate.
Reading so rebuilt the human brain that he was able to recognize symbols. French neuroscientist Stanislas Dean, along with colleagues from Portugal and Brazil, conducted brain imaging studies using MRI as the subjects read. It turned out that at first, written symbols are perceived as objects, but then the information that is encrypted in conventional signs, its meaning and how these letters are pronounced, is recognized.
When we read, our brain reacts to every word we read. He responds only to those letters that a person has learned, completely unresponsive to unfamiliar signs, hieroglyphs.
A unique process takes place: we see letters, at first they are just incomprehensible signs on paper, the brain correlates them with the meaning of these letters-signs, then they are added to words. From each word read there are images, associations, each has several meanings.
The new meaning of the word paints a new picture, memories are connected.
The more I read, the more images I can imagine, the richer they are, the richer my imagination.
I am reading - experiencing a wide range of experiences and imagining. The visual cortex of the brain is actively involved in this process. It is from reading that it actively develops.
It is important to read - perceive with the eyes. If we listen to audiobooks, then the ear immediately catches the meaning. The most important link in the transformation of a symbol, letter for word, image in the brain falls out. Theater, audiobooks, cinema are support, but not the development of the sensory sphere and imagination. For example, on the screen we see a finished picture: the hero looks at the pattern under his feet. But how to convey the unthinkable longing for the mosaic pavements of the insanely beloved city? Only the reader gets a unique experience of living these pictures, colors, sensations, and this remains in the soul forever.
Read about the importance of imagination for modern man in the article "Imagination is the driving force of evolution."
The world I live in
Imagination develops only by the written word. When I read a word, an image arises. I read a lot of words - I get a lot of images, my imagination develops. For artists, it also develops exclusively through reading.
Do you see ships in the sky? The sun has outlined the waterline, here they are, floating, white, gold. Someone will see just clouds, while others will not even notice them at all.
The world is not boring or wonderful in itself. It is we, those who look, who determine who he is.
We all live side by side and see the same thing - one has a sad life, and the other is jumping with happiness. Why?
We look inside ourselves: the shelf with the words is almost empty. There are no maps, routes or signs. It is unclear which way to go to see the world and people beautiful. We get a positive outlook on the world if we nurture our feelings through literature. Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Kuprin raise us to their level with the help of works and put us on their shoulders so that we have a chance to see even more and further than they.
The book changes our destiny. In the works of classical literature, we find examples of noble people, we learn to distinguish good from evil. Reading saves, develops us adequately to the modern world. In a stressful situation, fear will not take possession of a well-read person. He will see development trends in the future. Find a way out. This imagination will capture the essence of change for the better. The ability to foresee the future will neutralize uncertainty about the future, increase stress resistance, and this, in turn, will strengthen the immune system and human resistance to disease.
Great people give us an example of a vision of the world and the ability to imagine the future. Nikolai Nosov wrote the stories "Mishkina's Porridge", "Gardeners", "Friend" and others from the cycle "Knock-knock-knock" from 1938 to 1944. In the most terrible time of the Great Patriotic War, he was able to create the brightest stories we love. He put hope in the heart of every child. I imagined myself and gave the children a vision of a peaceful sky.
Thanks to his developed imagination, Ivan Efremov penetrated with his thoughts into the future, described scientific discoveries unthinkable at that time. He predicted that they would discover diamond deposits in Yakutia. He was a scientist, but as a writer he could put everything in a fantastic manner. So the physicist Yu. Denisyuk picked up and developed the idea of creating holography.
Thanks to the reading, the father of Russian cosmonautics Konstantin Tsiolkovsky took place. By the age of 14, the future scientist and inventor became almost deaf, but he read a lot in his home library. A passion for inventions awoke in him: balloons, then airships. He was able to look into a future that no one could have imagined. At the end of the 19th century, he wrote about the possibility of flying on the first space rocket and exploring the boundless interplanetary space.
The development of feelings is the highest attraction
Only through the written word does a person become a person. What does it mean to become human?
Physically, we are born as people, but internally, mentally, we still need to develop. How an apple ripens, filling with juice, sweetness, aroma. An unripe green apple tastes sour and sore. So a person who is born becomes him only with the development of consciousness and feelings. And the more developed a person's sensory sphere, the more experiences his soul contains, the more attractive he is for us.
Actress Ksenia Rappoport does not consider herself beautiful, says that only her hands are beautiful. But we just fall in love with her. She is mesmerizing. Peerless. We believe in the images of her heroines, we feel the depth of her soul. Incredibly real, magnetically attractive.
From an interview with her, we learn that she read a lot as a child. The apartment had a very small room - a library, such a small space, all in shelves, completely filled with books. And an old sagging chair. There was nothing else, not even windows. As a child, Ksenia read there. Many. "I spent the happiest [moments] in this chair … The happiness was incredible!" And the first book that turned her over and shook her was Cervantes' Don Quixote. Illustrations, smell, frayed spine. “I just sobbed,” says Ksenia, “I wanted to find this Don Quixote, hug, hide from the cruel world! It was a hysterical reading."
When reading evokes strong feelings of love and compassion, it is then that it develops our soul tremendously. After such a book, we become richer for a lifetime. We fall into the book and return differently, because everything experienced with the heroes becomes our indelible impression of the soul. We are overwhelmed by feelings of such strength that, upon waking up, for some time we cannot distinguish our life from what is written in the book. This is the most powerful psychotherapy: tears of cleansing and empathy.
We can get more experience in two days of reading a book than some people in several years. Our brain does not distinguish between the real and the read: we live the events in the book and feelings become our experience. We experience empathy for the hero of the book exactly as for a real person. At Emory University in the United States, experiments were carried out when subjects were given an MRI while reading. It turned out that certain parts of the brain are activated, the neurons of which can convert experiences and thoughts into real sensations. We immerse ourselves in the events taking place in the book, as if they were actually happening to us.
Even from a randomly read story, changes in the brain remain for more than five days. We can only guess how long and deep the impact of the book will be, which caused a violent response in the soul and body of a person. The emotional state changes, the biochemistry of the brain comes to a state of balance - we feel happiness.
I'd like very much that in the experience of every person there was a book that turned everything upside down. For some it will be the great humanist Hugo with his Les Miserables, for some it will be Exupery's Little Prince. Maybe Kuprin's genius will strike us in the heart, or maybe Korolenko.
My shock and love are given to Van Gogh from the book by Irving Stone. Very unhappy and infinitely rich in soul, he became like my own. She lived her life with him and cried when he left. But every time his paintings fill the heart with joy that we lived and painted together.
Books that turn the soul become loved. Each time I stroke their roots with tenderness, and in response they open up to the right pages.
We think in words
Many people love to read. Learned early and enjoy reading throughout their lives. The intellect set by nature is a feature of the psyche of people with visual and sound vectors. They read - this is their need, it fills them and makes them happy. Spectators want experiences, feelings, tears. The sound ones yearn to find a philosophical meaning, answers to the questions of life. Reading develops people with any given vectors from birth. Learn more about this at the free online training "System-Vector Psychology" by Yuri Burlan.
We understand the world around and ourselves, only calling everything by their proper names. We comprehend what is happening through the exact word. We are able to see the miracle of life around us only if we have something to perceive it. You need a vocabulary. What words are stored in the storerooms of consciousness, such thoughts come to mind. If there are no words, then there are no thoughts. “I think, therefore I am,” wrote Rene Descartes.
The larger the vocabulary, the wider the consciousness. Some are looking for a way to expand their consciousness through meditation. They go to the jungle to learn to meditate from the guru, but it does not work, does not give the desired result. But in the modern world one must have a very developed consciousness.
How does consciousness develop? A stock of meanings. Meaning is a word. We expand our consciousness by increasing our vocabulary by reading classic fiction literature. There is not even a rough alternative to reading in the formation of vocabulary.
Our everyday language is very limited and poor. Continuous verbs of action: went, brought, ate, fell asleep. The richness of the language is born only from the written word. When we read and experience strong emotions, then our storehouses of words, meanings are replenished, imagery of thinking, sensuality develops. Thanks to them, we feel the delightful happiness of living avidly. This gives rise to the excitement of knowledge, inspiration to express oneself, interest in people and the world.
Great experience of reading books instills the skill of competent writing. It is important to write correctly. Literacy changes psychology, carries a colossal meaning, another self-awareness arises. Every mistake in a word leads to mistakes in concepts.
There is an exact connection here: we write words without mistakes and live without mistakes.
This is a direct connection with the psyche. We begin to unmistakably cooperate with other people, create unmistakable relationships.
When reading fairly complex classical works, we concentrate, experience tension. It is necessary as a development and charge for the head, which preserves clarity of thinking, memory and protects against dementia.
The Society for Research in Child Development conducted an experiment with 1,890 identical twins aged 7, 9, 10, 12 and 16 years old. It turned out that the earlier a person acquires reading skills, the higher the general level of intelligence. In pairs of twins, one child was taught to read earlier than the other, and the first was smarter than his twin.
Classical literature teaches us to think consistently and consistently. We will not be able to think two mutually exclusive thoughts, because the causal relationship will be clear to us.
Correct books
I will return to the words of Konstantin Paustovsky in the epigraph of the article that "… time … for genuine literature it creates immortality." Surprisingly, the most modern literature today is the Russian and foreign classics of the 19th century.
It is foreign only conditionally if we read it in Russian. If we could read Shakespeare in the original, then it would be a completely different work and truly foreign literature. We read in Russian: the great translators Vasily Zhukovsky, Ivan Bunin, Nikolai Gumilyov, Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, Kornei Chukovsky, Samuil Marshak, Yevgeny Yevtushenko and many more gave us this opportunity, making our works even more beautiful.
The world classics lays down a basic moral imperative, clear cultural landmarks and correct associative series. It contains a true description of the manifestations of the human psyche.
Not fantasies about how the hero might feel and act, but a complete correlation with reality. The author's observations of the life of people, time-tested. Truthfulness evokes an unconscious response in us.
There are many books now, because publishing a book is easy. Everyone who wants to write, regardless of whether they can. There are many texts on the Internet with different cultural, moral, informational values. Not all books can and should be read. Don't read light, relaxing, mediocre fiction, even for fun!
A book is a tool for knowing yourself. Literature heals, provides a powerful psychotherapeutic influence. Filled with meanings on many levels. How many times you re-read, so many new discoveries, thoughts and feelings will be revealed.
Please read the top authors:
Alexander Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, Mikhail Lermontov, Victor Hugo, Nikolai Gogol, Anton Chekhov, Franz Kafku, Jerome Selinger, Ray Bradbury, Ivan Turgenev, Alexander Kuprin, Jack London, Arkady Gaidar, Honore de Balzakov, Mikhail Bulimin Hemingway, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Theodore Dreiser, Irwin Shaw, Konstantin Paustovsky, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Somerset Maugham, Ivan Bunin, Ivan Efremov, Lev Gumilyov, Stefan Zweig, Isaac Asimov, Fyodor Dostoevsky. And many, many others. From modern it is worth reading Lyudmila Ulitskaya.
