Being a reader- chapter 3/5

June 30, 2013August 29, 2014 / Vishu Mishra / Leave a comment

Let me tell my story to recapitulate the entire thing–

I have a great love for English as a language- idioms, phrases, vocabulary, slangs,different verbiage, linguistics, semantics. one can’t fail to be a good and entertaining conversationalist if you pursue interest in all of these. Along comes a natural flair for good humor, personal observation for people’s behavior, their idiosyncrasies, their accent, their weakling as a recipe for protruding out their animated self & basically a central idea in my mind to create entertainment for people around me.

So often i have tried to engage my mental troubles to writing diary, creating couplets, writing short & long poems, even few articles on random topics. However, I was never a reader. You could ask me about any of the first three questions on world scenario, books, topics & I would give a nay shrug with personalized cussing tone & move towards outdoor. It is because I was possessed with the idea of real time engagement for e.g. sports, biking, running, hanging out with people etc. I could look at a book shelf for ages and still not get one familiar name from the shelf.

I was neither a voracious reader nor an omnivorous reader nor could I simulate myself and dabble around with a book. I gained my expertise by being out and living & everything written in books seemed second class. However, my only hook was my interest in writing and my love for the language, for which I miserably looked for self-help books on vocabulary, phrases, idioms, all those –‘how to?’ books.

As mentioned above, I had an acute problem with my concentration and passing the bookish books of college was itself a daunting task altogether. So, there was no shelf for other books. Now here’s an an interesting dichotomy, There are two kinds of people, first ones are runners and second are readers. Life needs a balance of both R’S, without which your overall development won’t suffice. I rated myself at 1 out of 10 on reading habits on the above (considering it an evaluation from my past).

Now the embarrassing part of the story –
In College I could read nothing without great efforts, so I wasn’t reading at all with no efforts .To be in this position, you will feel that life turns stagnant in every-way. Your awareness of the world is through tv-news , which already morphs the real meat & present their meager work of self-cultivated reality-scenario for the medium class people. Your information is only through other people which to say the least, is again second hand & lacks credibility. Which finally means, if you haven’t read about anything nor known it from the source, how can you ever be sure of what you’re stating to other people.

In such a case, you will always hustle, you will give poker faces while asserting, you will try to master the art of word mincing, you will turn a consummate liar at points & an unabashed ego-debater with no grounds or substance. So, in a longer term, it knocks out your outdoor activities too. Therefore, talking about latest trends, technologies, and upcoming things is out of the window. You now depend on another person in the group to give some information & then you can add your worthless repetitions & junky variations to engage In a hollow conversation,which has no merits & rewards at its end. Therefore, you can’t belong to this category as well.

Finally, ideas maybe abstract but they are inspired from the working world, the simplest practical realities, you need to know the world in current age to evolve an idea that changes it. Therefore, you cannot belong to this section as well. So in the end, you are left & cornered in the first kind of people- you will talk about the gossip in college, neighbourhood, about people, about day’s events, about sensationalism, about scandals, which is to a lot of people on the acceptable terms. However, you are not even remotely on the refreshing talk, ever-growing personality, emotional growth, spurring ideas or even showing a fair level of intellect.

You are full of cliché’, borrowed phraseology, your bromide conversations put people to deep-sleep. Your platitudinous statements turn people flabbergasted to your audacious attempt at coolness. if you could guess it, these people are the average IQ people of the society, the ones who discuss ongoing scenarios are above average,very good and smart, the ones who engage in ideas and changes in the world are atop superior & even genius. If you adhere to the idea of IQ being an asset in life. It’s high time you jump to the second bracket & ‘being a good reader’ is the only hope.

Here are some tips that will surely help you in your reading–

But before that, I have a word of wisdom for all the writer brethren. After all this radical transformation, I have had a revelation that has broken my solid foundations of negligence, it is a simple resolved notion that writing and reading go together. You must be a good reader to become a good writer. If you’re not ill-struck by god, with a disease causing bad concentration & still don’t get into any reading habit -then I can only sympathize with your ambitions to become a good writer, or your aspirations to develop an intellect or even possessing a great vocabulary for word usage. It is like a self inflicted wound, like a self- imposed curse to life.

For writers->always remember! That Grammar is the backbone of all expressions, so get it right, not the pedantic or puristic right but on a fairly acceptable & necessary terms. After that comes the connecting strokes & conjunctional patterns in your writing. Subsequently, your vocabulary & your style. So, reading can take care of a major part of it but don’t try to hold your nose the other way round. I have had lot of trouble in improving upon my grammar & connecting strokes because I learned my English without reading good stuff. So I was habitual in making very complicated mistakes – of grammar & connections. Such things can only go away with voracious, omnivorous & variety reading

being a reader

godspeed.
vishu mishra

Being a reader- chapter 2/5

June 29, 2013August 29, 2014 / Vishu Mishra / Leave a comment

Anyways! coming out of that bookish discussion, let’s try something else. Let us try to introspect about other traits of your outward personality.

1. Are you a kind of person who likes discussions about science-fiction, sports strategies, futuristic trends, latest fashion- & it’s cool and clumsy quotients, or how the next sequel of that movie should or shouldn’t have been made, a complete-critique of your activities.

2. Are you a gregarious person, do you like to engage in an interesting discussion with an old or new group & “talks about what you think?”

3. Are you an active netizen– do you like to write your experiences, express your opinions on social forums, be vocal of your stand and Get verbal on your thinking.

4. Are you an intellectual egoist– who despite all ignorance to reading & knowing defends his opinions on a choice of subjectivity i.e. your opinion is yours and you stick to it? Do you try a lot harder to always at par your intellect with the others on almost anything put to discussion.

5. Are you a special case like me who likes writing, knowing good & difficult words, using good & smart phrases but doesn’t like reading other people’s stuff! Well, it is true that everybody wants his stuff to be read and be given a fair opinion or peripheral critique, if allowed!. Somebody once told me, “you can’t be a good writer unless you read what others have written”. My reply- “why? What about the first painting in the early man caves or first manuscript on ancient culture, proves a point doesn’t it?”

Here’s an interesting factoid about intellect, English and ideas–

ENGLISH– The backbone of English i.e. grammar is inconsistent with time; it changes unlike the spelling of words. The usage of English & phrases ,are defined in a society according to the trend set by the most educated people i.e. writers, opinion makers etc. there is always a class of people in the society that will earmark a word or phrase as cliché, an idiom as old & an adjective as over-used. They might rescue the old lost verbiage & put it into the modern usage and they might bag-pack few of those currently in use, to old graves.

IDEAS–
Some wise man said- “ideas are like sperms, only few make it”. I guess its befitting to identify those few who make it and not let a modicum of useful thought & effort be wasted in harnessing the others , right?
Another school of thought says– it is a continuing and frustrating process of churning & repetition that ensures the consistency of productive & worthier output (not in terms of volume). Which means, irrespective of thinking about the desired output and working on all the output ,of which a few maybe desirable. Hence, whether any field- it’s your pursuit that matter. If you like ideas, then your days and night should be engaged in thinking, spend your time in discussing and engaging with new & fresh ideas, if you’re an artist, a painter, a humorist, so should be the case. Interaction spurs interest, which is the core of all excellence. If Sachin Tendulkar din’t have undying & unparallel interest in cricket, not even god’s all talent could have made him accomplished half of where he stands. if Da Vinci dint like the idea of the new world,there won’t have been a blueprint book, which contained basis for over 100 great inventions. Therefore,interest & ideas go back to back.

Here’s another interesting thing about vocabulary–
A table of comparison with your age & words learned per year.

Age v/s known words
By 4 yrs 500 words
7 yrs 20,000 words
10 years 35,000 words
……..20 years onwards …100 words/year

Now let me connect all the dots in a simple way. You were learning words at a faster pace when you were a little kid than as an adult today. Looking at later years, it shows that your vocab. Growth is snail paced right now. Words are said to be the symbol of ideas, every word is derived from some symbol, it even has a word-root, a story or even a belief behind it. Hence, not knowing them will create a blind spot on your mental window of ideas. So ideas and words go together like thread & needle. If you’re looking for new ideas, or you wish to engage into higher dimensions of your mind. It is important that you lose your ignorance to the world of words. Further, it is also interesting to note that your IQ scores and your vocab. scores are very similar i.e. if you score in a higher bracket in one, you will end up in the same in other.

So, your intelligence, your intellect, your mental keenness & sharpness, your refreshing attitude towards ideas and their engagement with the world, & finally your English- they are all pieces of the same boggling puzzle, like small parts of a larger machine that runs your brain, feeds you knowledge & awareness, a feeling of freshness & a presence of being in the current age. So, if you are an intellectual egoist, you would always want to feel the rush of mental euphoria, being sweetly-struck with your abstract theory which sounds so fantastic. It can be your brilliant idea that seems so plausible or your original views on a subject that are out of the book. All such things not borrowed but cooked in your own cauldron of mind ,under the fuel of passion & aired by a brainstorm of original thinking.

being a reader

godspeed.
vishu mishra

Being a reader – chapter 1/5

June 29, 2013August 29, 2014 / Vishu Mishra / Leave a comment

Being a good reader

Which is the last non-fiction book you read recently? What are the current topics that have engrossed the world? Who is the best seller of this year? If you don’t know the answer to any of the above, you simply give a nay shrug. You are on the right page.

I am a fellow nescient citizen of this group, who now hold-hands with you in this companionship. I am a non-reader by choice. Why? Because I take leisure in ignoring the book-stalls on pavements of broad-streets. I simply look away to the road side hawkers with a pile of unfamiliar volumes- fiction, non-fiction, biographies, mainstream writer’s section, eccentric writer’s corners, the aesthetic writers or the shiny-gloss of those ever-smiling colorful magazines. I do sometimes read my newspaper, I hover on the headlines, skim through the sports page, looking for cricket or some bold news on a sports star then I simply jump to gossip on the page 3.
Okay! You say this guy is a total loser! Why did he bother to write all this? do you feel you are better than me? lets see! how do you estimate yourself as a reader-?

What kind of a reader are you –

1. Are you a voracious reader? – Irrespective of its merit, your hunger for material is insatiable & you devour on any thing that gets on to your hands it’s a part of your staple diet.

2. Or Are you an omnivorous reader? – Your reading-range cuts through all fields, you have read books on sociology, war history, psychology, sports, autobiographies, medicine, architecture, economics, and philosophies. You can easily engage in all sorts of discussions with people of all kind.
3. Or Are you an expert reader in a particular field? – leave aside your profession or your college time readings, you are the person who has developed interest in a topic and tried to penetrate its nuances to the innermost core, almost like a morbid obsession. As if you’re planning to write the sequel or a similar engaging volume.

4. No! or Are you a dabbler? – You don’t read books to gain knowledge or get ideas, your sole purpose while slipping through the pages is to pass time. Maybe on a short travel on bus, while going to sleep, or alone on a boring evening etcetera. Nothing really matters on the receiving ends of your brain.

5. Maybe you just read self-help books – you are like me! you want to improve your vocabulary, your English grammar, pronunciation, some tips on something, a quick view on a fancy technique, from those how to books?

In the end, whichever category you belong to, even though the above list is not exhaustive in nature. How do you rate yourself as a reader on a whole? (poser ,mediocre, active, super-active)

Honestly,I would hardly pass an analysis on a reading scale and abashedly fill the fifth point. My excuse – am an outdoor person! Is it yours too?

I mean who would want to sit and waste time on fiction novels or reading about someone who is long gone in past century. Why should one keep his mind enthralled by the highs and lows of emotions that are simply (just) vicarious feelings in the end. I should rather live my life outside my room, have my own experiences, maybe go biking, play some sports, get wasted in a pub, lose track of time in night-outs. Etcetera, why not?

There is not even one good reason for which a noble soul could ever convince me to pick a hardcover and start reading it. (do you also feel the same? )

Okay! I guess we sympathize with each other & we are pretty synced in our opinions, but before we proceed, here’s a well known adage about the three different minds in this world–

1. Those who talk about their lives, other people’s lives, gossips.

2. Thos who talk about the upcoming technology, newly introduced architecture, the conspicuous changes that excite you more than the others and you want to be a part of it.

3. Those who talk about ideas, things that can change the world, things that will follow in years to come, those who spend time writing or collecting their thought , in order to bring a radical change in the society, economy, science.

Now Give a mild stroll to your neurons and look for your position, in one among the top three.

So moving forward– let us consider it a benign pleasure of us cool citizens of the outdoor’s, to look into the boring reader’s world for a change. May-be we might understand their choices of misery for a change. Just for a second, let’s think what’s our actual reasons for not picking up a book like them. Here’s mine-

1. I am recently convalescing from an decade long acute sinusitis (maxillas), so doctor told me it has affected your concentration to a great extent. The positive vibes don’t fall on the modulus and you hardly absorb or concentrate to anything, your mind wavers on every third second of the clock. So getting past college books was a big deal, forget other stuff. So if you’re one of those poor souls, well! get medicine first!

2. You find reading a very intriguing & painstaking process, after few pages, your mind is overwhelmed with lines and words & it starts getting boring.so anything that is boring induces somnolence. Hence, you leave it and you do something more engaging- like watching television!

3. You try reading sometimes but your brain is popped up with so many difficult words, the activity is discontinued and next thing you are doing is thumb-nailing a dictionary to your table.

4. You don’t like fiction (neither do I), but you can’t choose any non-fiction stuff because you don’t know where to actually start. You are befuddled in that long lining rack of books. Somebody comes in and suggest something very simple, thin and common. You feel offended to you intellect and you skip the exercise. It’s all a waste you say, so let’s move on!

being a reader

godspeed.
vishu mishra