A reflection on how reading alone impacted me. 

Yesterday I had a chat with my neighbour. He was surprised that I had stayed in the building for over a year. "Why's there no sound or trace that you live here?". I was confused when I heard his question. In my mind, I was having a very noisy life; there were too many things to do, too many thoughts, and my lights were always on at night and many more. Yet, he assumed my flat was empty because it had no sound.

That's when I realised that most of my noise was internal. Most of my self-talk was internal. The lights were on, but no one seriously looked for them. Then I looked back at what I did for the last year and realised that I had been working, reading books or sleeping.

Then, I was even more amused that I never considered that I was alone as long as I read the books. Of course, this realisation made me feel concerned as I am in my early twenties, and now's the only time I can go out and meet people. I'm not going to list the entire thought spiral here, but ultimately, I've realised that reading as a habit has defined many aspects of my life as a human being. But reading alone has had a higher level of impact on me.

This article is the summary of the thought spiral I went on. Of course, I can see why that line is concerning, but don't worry, I'm perfectly sane.

Impact on my thoughts and actions

Pro: Curiosity

The first thing I think about is the way my view of the world has changed. There is a tinge of curiosity colouring everything I do now. Because of how each character explored their world and the wisdom many entrepreneurs, professors, PhD scholars, etc., shared, my view towards simple things completely differs from the ones closest to me.

When you read alone and are stuck at understanding certain aspects of the story, you go on a completely different exploration to clarify those things. For example, I can share why I enjoyed reading 48 Laws of Power.

For each of the 48 laws, the author shared multiple examples of why the law holds and how it might fail. But because I was reading it by myself and not in a time-bound book club discussion, I had the freedom stories of each character, the state of their country, what helped them, what went wrong, etc. This felt like opening a completely new door in my world. I can only remember scouring through different history, place-related sites and Wikipedia articles to find my answers.

Of course, I also shared what I had learned through my medium article. If you're interested, you can check it out here. Ultimately, this curiosity is what keeps my day alive. Even in my work, I now have the patience to keep researching different papers, blogs and documentation to code my projects. However, I can't say that this curiosity has always helped me.

Con: Surprisingly inconsistent

Because of my innate curiosity, I kept having too many things on my plate each day. However, once I started managing the tasks, especially removing all the unnecessary things off my plate, things started making more sense. I realised that I am surprisingly a very inconsistent person. I do things only on the whim of my curiosity. If I feel like writing about a topic, I start writing. If I feel like working on a project, I stop all the other tasks and focus on it.

This is a very unstable framework for a salaried employee, as there might come a day when a serious deadline might clash with one's preferred actions.

To fix this, I am currently testing out time-boxing strategies and trying my best to push everything only to the times allotted to them. It feels weirdly claustrophobic doing this, as most of my actions are controlled. I need to see how long this can take and what I might have to change to keep this habit flowing.

Impact on Conversations

Pro: Self-dialogue

It's still surprising to me that most of the population don't have a conversation with themselves. That's when I realised why many people don't like watching anime or reading books written in first-person perspectives. I mean, you need to relate to the trope to enjoy it.

I can only attribute my self-dialogue to reading books. I am sure this only started when I found a character I liked but was written with tremendous self-narration. While imitating the character, I started to think about third parties in my brain.

How can this help in my life? Well, it helps me to understand people's perspectives. I can discuss with myself to see and try to understand where a person is coming from and why their actions make sense. Of course, that also means a significant con because of this. Having too many discussions with myself makes it harder to converse with others.

Con: Conversing with others

Have you ever found yourself conversing with others, yet your thoughts have moved past the topic of discussion? Well, I did. Typically, every conversation is a 4-step process.
1. You start to think
2. You speak with the other party
3. The other party thinks
4. You listen to the other party's response.

However, when I am in a conversation, it's like a conversation with three people. The two people in sync will keep conversing, while the third person joins in sometimes. The problem is that the two people in sync are me and myself. I have a thought, understand it, think of a response thought, and respond to it.

This is very irritating, and trying to silence this is a skill I struggled to learn. The main thing that helped me during this time was to write everything down. I realised that when I write, the second party in my brain focuses on reading what I write. So, every time I'm in a meeting, I write. Slowly, it became a habit to reflect on what I was thinking rather than conversing with myself.

Impact due to immersion

Pro: Ability Gained - Instant bubble

After reading alone for nearly a decade at bookshops, restaurants, hostels, classrooms, and bus journeys, I have gained an amazing ability. I can now separate myself from everything happening in my surroundings. I can read, write, work, and focus on anything.

This is a superpower. Zoning out is not the right term, but that's the closest I can think of. This has helped me many times; this is the second valuable trait I've gained through reading alone. The most valuable, though, is still curiosity.

I don't think I need to share more on why this is an amazing ability. If you still want an example, think of that annoying person you know who never stops speaking. I can separate myself from that chatter. That's how good this is.

However, just like the other two I mentioned earlier, this trait, too, has a con. It's also more frustrating than the earlier ones.

Con: Time management hates me.

Because of the trait of creating a bubble, I often find myself immersed in an activity I'm doing. It was all good when I was in college. But the moment I entered the society, things started getting screwed up.

The first thing that screwed up was my sleep schedule. Because of my work, I can't risk this getting messed up. Unfortunately, I still don't have a control on this one. I also often miss my meeting notifications because of this trait. I need to find a solution to this as soon as possible.

P.S. If you have any tips on what I can do, please share them! I desperately need help on this. I've already missed too many meetings.

That's everything important I have to share on this topic. Of course, I still have many things to discuss with you. Especially about books! So, if you had fun reading this, I'd like to meet you again.

Thanks for reading this till the end.

Don’t forget to give a follow! Until we meet again! ✌️