In my writing, I make light references to books I am reading / have read recently (a lot of my thought inspiration does come as a reaction to what I read), and generally I allude to the fact I really enjoy reading. Which I do. This part of me is lodged both firmly and deeply, and I’d like to give some more context. I don’t actually know when I learned to read. My best guess is that I was self-sufficient around age 4 while I was attending pre-k. I know that in kindergarten at age 6 I was pretty fluent, already testing at about a 4th to 5th grade or maybe higher comprehension level. In kindergarten, we had a special exercise where the mighty 3rd graders (my elementary school went up to 3rd and then 4th and 5th grade were on a separate campus across town) were stooping down to help us newbies learn to read. We each got a partner / mentor to help us read a book the teacher had given us. It was hilarious and a moment of pride that I was actually helping my 3rd grade partner read. By the time I was in third grade, I was somewhere around sophomore in high school level, and within another year I had basically capped out on the grade school scale.
I would quite literally read anything. My goal was to read every book in the school library. Any time I went to check out books, I had to come out with a stack of at least 6-8. Within the week I was back for a new set. Even then, I felt a bit of pride in doing something like that the other kids wouldn’t care to do. I liked being a little different, a little better to in my younger self’s eyes, but primarily I loved what I was getting out of the books. Initially it was super simple things like books on animals and plants, fact books basically. Check out a book on wolves, learn about wolves living in packs, what they prey on, etc. and then feeling a need to know about every animal the library has stocked. I had so much fun learning and thinking that it never became a priority of mine to try to be the popular kid or the fast running kid (which would have been tough because I was chubby), or other stuff like that. To be clear, I never came even close to reading every book in the library.
Sometimes I would be a bit extreme. One summer after 2nd or 3rd grade I was determined to take my vocabulary to the next level, so I took a dictionary we had in the house and started hand copying every word and definition onto notebook paper. I got almost to the Es before I realized (1) this is going to take a long time, (2) it’s not that fun, and (3) I don’t think I’m going to get out of this exercise what I want, so I stopped. In middle school, we had a running homework for language arts to read two articles per week from a learning platform for teens, take the quizzes, and provide our scores. Over Thanksgiving break in 8th grade, the thought came to me to do a bunch of quizzes, like a stupid amount, that would surely surprise people. Mostly for the meme value I thought. So for several hours at a time I sat at the computer and read articles, pretty soon I was only skimming since I could pretty easily get the answers right without reading the whole thing. I found out at one point there was a national leaderboard, and also top 2 students in each state were listed. I pushed pretty hard, I didn’t crack top 2 in Florida (I think I’d remember that) – either way it was pretty funny showing up to school with a printout showing a couple hundred articles with mostly perfect scores.
Roughly speaking, I read the most in volume through fifth grade. Yes, I watched plenty of TV and sometimes I was forced to be outdoors, but it was quite common in elementary school for me to read 4-6 hours every day after school, and more than that on some summer days or holidays. There are a couple of reasons. One, I lived in a neighborhood full of older, retired people so there were no children to play with. Two, even if there were children, my mom was very insular and protective and would not have let me roam around with other kids who she thought were surely up to no good. Three, it was so much fun. It’s cheesy, but the infinite places I could go in my mind and imagine – it was a positive cycle of my creativity and imagination continually being challenged which made the reading even more fun as my interpretation and visualization improved. And a partial last reason which I’ll give in transparency. A college mentor once mentioned that there are studies about low income youth latching on to reading as an escape + potentially an ego validation in an otherwise grim situation. It was a bit shocking (emotionally, personally) to think that something I held as a sacred part of my identity was simply the practical result of some environmental conditions. I instinctively felt the idea had some validity, so even then I didn’t debate it, and now I am no longer sensitive about it. My parents were often working / not home and my sister, two years older, would be taking care of me fully on her own as early as when she was 7-8 and I was 5-6. I could see I was poor, some people didn’t like Mexicans (to put racism lightly), and more stuff I may dive into another time, so perhaps reading was also a practical escape. It makes sense. I will say though that reading is just as fun now as it used to be and if anything I am facing life these days not escaping from it, so it’s probably a combination of things.
The rest is easier to summarize. In middle school, I still read a lot, but less because my coursework was harder / more varied -> so I diversified vs. in elementary school everything was too easy (keeping in mind I attended a rural FL public elementary school that sometimes dipped to being C-rated). In high school, I read much less because school was a lot more intense. College was so intense + add on the transition of growing up and the social aspect and I hardly read at all outside coursework. In senior year of college, I started visiting the Harvard Business School library somewhat regularly, checking out a variety of business / behavior books – mostly because I had satisfied all my requirements a semester early and was on cruise control the last semester. This trend sort of continued for my first 3 years of full-time work. I was fully focused on becoming a better professional and learning finance, so I didn’t really read at all. Since 2023, I now read consistently again which I’m happy about, but still not as much as I would like. To oversimplify, through high school I predominantly read fiction with some non-fiction / self-help sprinkled in here and there, and since then mostly non-fiction.
A question I want to ask is why do I love to read? Why do I feel the joy when I make sense of the words before me? That I don’t know, and based on various things I’ve come across my gut tells me the ‘real’ answer has a yet to be mapped neurological / understanding of the brain basis. My practical answer is a combination of emotion, curiosity, and capability – not separately but meshed as one reason. Emotionally, reading brings me joy and pleasure – at times so pure I don’t know if I can feel a more complete satisfaction. When I make a new insight, I get goosebumps, my arm hair stands on end, and even my whole body might get a little shudder of excitement. On curiosity, I’d say I love learning more than reading, and so it’s convenient / fortuitous that reading is an excellent vehicle for learning / thinking. As I’ve shared, in some instances, I can get a little obsessive about gaining more knowledge, and truly obsessive when it comes to using that knowledge towards understanding my life better – more in spirit though, my practical side holds the reins fairly steady. Regarding ability, I have a natural affinity for language, and my main point here is that even among other things which I am good at, I am even better with words – relative to myself (which I have found out objectively). Even more than math stuff which is what people usually give me credit for.
This is a reasonable summary of my background relationship with reading. It’s ever evolving, and I’m glad about that. A lifelong friend that had all of my attention early on, and the kind of friend who waited for me when I put all my energy on the new and the shiny – leaving them without saying goodbye. The kind of friend a person maybe doesn’t deserve, but we count in our corner nonetheless. I think what I’ve done in the past 1.5 years is realign myself after gathering some variety of life experience. In realigning, the hope is to have a higher chance of understanding my life mission, and in this way reading is more than an action or learning, it’s a guide (of many) in my exploration of the universe. Reading is good, and the good never goes away – it is there when you are ready to meet it for as long as you can meet it.
