(or: my current existential crisis about books, people, and critical thinking)
Keywords: reading habits, intellectual laziness, open-mindedness, reading to grow
Genre: opinion piece disguised as a bookish rant to give my eyes a break from rolling
Length: medium (5 minuted reading time or long enough to annoy people who only read headlines)
Country: anywhere (because ignorance has no borders)
The thing
The Two Ways of Reading
Over the years, I have joined my fair share of book clubs and literary discussions, and while some have been genuinely stimulating, others left me wondering whether we had, in fact, read the same text at all. We would discuss a book, an author, or a theme, and the divergence in interpretation was so stark that it seemed as though we had inhabited entirely different worlds. For a long time, I chalked this up to differences in taste — and while taste certainly plays a role, I now think it runs deeper.
Some people read to confirm what they already know, to reinforce a worldview already carved in stone, and to find reassurance in familiar ideas. Others — and this is the camp I firmly identify with — read to step outside their own mental comfort zones, to explore what is unknown, and to test their understanding by engaging with perspectives they might never adopt or even agree with. This difference in intent is not a minor matter; it fundamentally changes the outcome of reading. It determines whether the act is transformative or merely decorative.
Consider, for instance, reading about an addict’s life. You do not need to condone or romanticise their choices to try to understand what led them there, how they felt while living it, and whether they longed for change. These are not experiences I plan to live, but if I encounter them in reality, I would rather have at least a rudimentary map — however imperfectly drawn by the author’s biases — than be utterly without reference.
And yet, I have seen readers abandon books the moment a protagonist violated their personal code of morality, even when the entire point of the book was to critique that very behaviour (not some trivial book, but a valued classic written by one of the most respected authors worldwide) . This is like refusing to finish a murder mystery because you disapprove of the murderer’s ethics.
When Reading Doesn’t Make You Wiser
We talk a lot about the decline of reading in general, but perhaps we should be asking a more uncomfortable question: why do people who read a great deal not always seem any more discerning, informed, or resistant to manipulation than those who never crack open a book? I suspect the answer is precisely this — reading without the willingness to be challenged.
If you only seek out works that reflect your pre-existing opinions, your mental furniture never gets rearranged; it simply gets dusted occasionally. This is why someone can own a library that would impress any visitor and yet still swallow conspiracy theories whole, fall for simplistic political narratives, and be unable to distinguish between evidence and hearsay. They are reading, yes, but reading like a person who goes to the gym religiously and never changes the weight on the machine — all show, no growth.
This Isn’t Just About Books
The reason this matters — and why it frustrates me enough to write about it — is that reading is not merely an entertainment choice, interchangeable with watching a film or scrolling through social media. Reading shapes the way we think, the way we interpret events, the way we interact with cultures and societies different from our own, whether we are aware of it or not. For that to happen in a constructive and positive way, we have to approach it as more than an exercise in self-congratulation.
Being open-minded is more than just accepting everything at face value; it demands curiosity and the courage to step into uncomfortable territory—into ideas, experiences, and perspectives we might never encounter or even willingly approach in daily life. Books offer a uniquely safe space for this mental exploration: they leave no physical scars, cannot harm us, but can profoundly challenge our preconceived notions and worldviews. In an age when the entire breadth of human knowledge is literally at our fingertips—where fact-checking is nearly instantaneous and alternative perspectives are just a few clicks away—there has never been a better time to embrace this intellectual daring.
Curiosity should be nurtured, especially now, as we are bombarded with information not only from our local environments but from every corner of the globe. Our realities are intertwined with countless others, near and far, and how we perceive and engage with these realities depends on our willingness to explore beyond comfort and certainty. To read without this willingness is to skim the surface of a vast ocean, missing the depths where true growth lies.
Why Is This Here
My blog was never meant for personal essays — it was meant for tidy book reviews. But after enough conversations that tested my self-restraint to the point of near facial injury from eye-rolling, I think this belongs here. I want to begin a discussion about why it is so difficult for some readers to finish a book when they disagree with its protagonist, and why, when we have the sum of human knowledge in our pockets, we still fail to meaningfully engage with perspectives beyond our own.
Perhaps the real problem is not that people are reading less. It is that they are reading without truly reading — without risking even the smallest shift in how they see the world.
Musings of a reading addict 
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