/lit/ - Literature

>>14954146
I force myself not to be a midwit.
Unironically I struggle in the same manner as you, OP. However, I read only philosophy and critical theory books, so it would make sense to force myself into them.
Novels I can read more easily, but sometimes with the really good ones I take too much of a phil-book attitude and start working harder than necessary with them.
I think we have consumed too much ADHD clickbuzz information for us to properly enjoy the sublime art of reading. What matters is our struggle to overcome this poisonous habit.
Heck, at least I managed to read Kant's Groundwork, Marx's Capital and Nietzsche's Zarathustra.

Don't lose your way, don't self-pity.

Thus midwitposted Zarathustra.

>>14954167
Shit, i just read about midwit on urbandictionary and its literally me. Fuck. What's the cure?

For me it's the exact opposite: I don't take a book seriously unless it's 400, 500 pages long. But then it took me about a decade of reading to get there.

I dont know what to tell you, I dont even hate reading them desu, Its just the act of putting down other activities to pick up the book in the first place, generally once I start im engaged and if im really interested i can spend all day doing it. Im a very slow reader and I read the silmarillion in a few days because i thought it was interesting and sat and read it all day, but just picking it up was the hard part for me

Sometimes people just don't like certain things. It's okay not to read, anon. Plenty of people go their entire lives without reading anything substantial. You should try and find a kind of reading that works for you but if you can't then don't beat yourself up.

You're unironically reading the wrong things. There's nothing wrong with wanting to be well-read, but doing it for the sake of socializing or adding another notch to your shelf is weird to me. If the book doesn't interest you, put it down and find one that does. Think, really think about why you're reading this or that, and go from there. While it's a commendable goal, no one man can know everything there is to be known. It's okay to not be able to jump seamlessly from a conversation about Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony to a discussion on the mother-spirit of Narcissus and Goldmund. If you find that the written word brings you no joy in verse, prose, or what-have-you, it's fine to just go on not reading. Find another hobby where you can go out and choose a specific this or that to do whatsoever; I'm fond of gardening and can spend hours poking through seed packets and fertilizers and the like without buying anything and still feeling as though I haven't wasted a single second of my life.

>>14954167
>I read only philosophy and critical theory books, so it would make sense to force myself into them.
>Novels I can read more easily, but sometimes with the really good ones I take too much of a phil-book attitude and start working harder than necessary with them.
Well, at least you know you're a midwit.

> I love book shopping, going to the bookstore and picking the one i'll buy. I also love the feeling of finishing a book, also love talking about the book to other people. The only thing i dont like is reading them.

>>14954146
I have the same issue. I thirst for the in-depth knowledge contained in those books, as I want to expand my horizons and gain new insight on the experience of my own life. But everytime I try to open a book, the act of reading feels like a slog.
I thought purchasing physical books would have fixed this behavior through buyer's remorse. But I fall into the same pitfall of obtaining the book and then putting it on my shelf, never to be read.
My approach to books (and activities in general, really) always ends up as a flash in the pan. I get a sudden surge of motivation, maybe even have a decent start, but the next day it's all gone.
So my question expands to a larger scope: how do I mantain my motivation constant throughout time? How do I "keep enjoying" things?

>>14954243
depends. if by midwit you mean a person with only slightly above average IQ, then there's no cure. but you can still become an erudite and a man of letters if you have enough discipline and will, J.D. Sallinger had a midwit tier IQ and look at what he's accomplished

How do i fight the desire of just browsing reddit/youtube instead

>>14955077
Sit somewhere else. If you normally browse at a desk with a computer, literally leave your phone there and get up. Grab a book and sit or lay somewhere else and read. It’s about making it a habit and the best way to make something a habit is by making it easier to get into. This has become difficult for me during quarantine because I work from the same desk I shitpost on. I read on my couch.


I think the other issue a lot of people in this thread are having is purely ego. They want to read thick books based on the reputation of those books, but they refuse to admit that what engages them is something else. I fell victim to this too. I have a shelf of philosophy and history books that feel like a slog most of the time. This is because they are dry and difficult. I have a different shelf full of science fiction and other fiction books. All of which are easy to read quickly and get your attention. But why do I don’t want to read them? Because I feel like if I’m reading I should be focusing on the hard stuff. But I think this is the wrong viewpoint. Both are reading, but they are fundamentally different content. Marshal McLuhan be dammed, the medium here is not the message. Stories captivate our monkey brains. Complex thought is fought tooth and nail, which is why it’s such a virtue in all these philosophical texts I haven’t read.

The more time you talk about not reading is time you could have spent reading

>>14955135
>but they refuse to admit that what engages them is something else.
Then I'll ask: how do I learn to appreciate the act of reading the text in front of myself? I'm asking this for my textbooks as well, as I have to read a big number of pages daily if I want to pass the exams with the grades I want.
I try thinking of objective merits the text has and I even find myself amazed by the technical quality of it. But the act of reading itself still remains joyless. And I despair, because I have such an objective but my "body" just won't cooperate with "me".

>>14955224
In law school the key question was always: what’s the point? What information and I trying to understand from the text. I’d have a few 30 page supreme court opinions in front of me that would meander and argue and lead to a small conclusion. First I’d skim around to try and find that conclusion. The next question is, of course, why is that? What ungodly justification did they have for this bullshit? I’ve already skimmed it so I know the general layout of what was going to happen and I knew what the result was. The language was dull and murky, but it turned into a challenge as opposed to just reading it. Fuck you text book. You won’t beat me. I’m gonna fucking understand your shit so I can complain about how dumb your shit is. Remember that someone wrote that shit. Someone went out of their way to be that retarded. It’s not just dead trees, it’s a person talking at you and you get to prove them wrong in class, with others, on the test.


This doesn’t always work, but it sure does help make things a little easier not going in blind and without a goal.

>>14955252
>This doesn’t always work, but it sure does help make things a little easier not going in blind and without a goal.
But I have troubles with going along with textbooks I've already read once too (as I have to re-read them), where I obviously know what's going to be featured in the next page.

>>14954243
you cannot spend all your time reading. you have to spend lots of time thinking too which is just as important. have conversations with yourself in your mind.

>>14955291
Why are you re-reading? You should have an outline or notes or flash cards or summaries of the material during your first go through and only need to visit the material again for specific questions on portions of the text you don’t understand. If you didn’t understand it the first time you might not be engaging with the material enough to make it stick.

Some things just may not be materially interesting, so it’s up to you to make them procedurally engaging. Again, different study methods can help with this.

>>14955310
>Why are you re-reading?
To memorize it better and thus pass the exam with the grade I want? How am I supposed to remember 900 pages of textbook on my first try? I can remember them in broad strokes, but the examiners expect detailed answers, I can't just namedrop concepts.

>>14955293
I dont spend any time reading. I cant concentrate

>>14955444
what are you doing here? is /lit/ easy enough for you to concentrate so you can absorb some kind of knowledge here?

Maybe you are a movie guy or a music guy. You know i know people who just can't go through an album of music or a movie but can easily read 500 pages of a book for day.

>>14954146
Maybe you would rather go on a real life adventure.

>>14954311
You seem like a well adjusted person and your writing is quite calming.

>>14954146
I think the key idea to understand is that you should choose the books that you read based on the problems which affect you in life or based on the interests that you enjoy. Do not choose what to read based on what you think you should read in terms of social expectations and elitist ideals. When I was younger I forced myself to read philosophy and certain prosa because I thought this would somehow make me more enlightened, more wisely, smarter or whatever. That didn't work. And the reason for this is that personally I never have had the problems that philophers like Plato, Aristoteles, Kant, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and so on have had. Like my life went fine and then I got into reading their stuff and they introduced problems about knowledge and reality and human nature and so on that never have bothered me before. So everything they had to say very much confused me and I think that nothing they had to say really changed my outlook on life before reading them, all it did for me was making up problems where there we're none beforehand. It's similar with some fictional characters and world building. Sometimes it's very interesting but oftentimes I felt that authors introduce over complex descriptions of really simple facts and perspectives that seem very unnatural and again, making simple stuff unnecessarily complicated. So I decided to ignore reading stuff where the matter is not problematic to me and where I don't understand whatever the author is up to or why it is important for him to be as difficult and confusing as possible when there is no good reason for that.

Basically this means stick to yourself and respect your own mind. Only very, very few people out there are predestined to have real existential problems which they can base their life around by reading and writing about that stuff on a high academic professional level. Same goes for all philosophical, moral and scientific problems, people generally just develop a few opinions on these matters and that's enough to go through life, enough to appreciate culture (and many, many books) and normal social life. If you don't feel comfortable reading something then it's most likely because you can't sense the problems which the author is addressing. Ask yourself if you want to have the same problems as the author has got or if you would be happier without such worries. Since /lit/ is an elitist shit hole my post will be disregarded but maybe someone understands what I mean.

>>14954146
The best way to build this kind of habit is to have a designated place where you only do this particular activity. When you go to this place the only thing you do is read and nothing else. Just like with exercise. You don't exercise at home, you go to the gym and the only thing you do at the gym is lift, not socialize, watch videos or any of that garbage. You will never be able to have a proper workout when you have all of these other things vying for your attention.

On most days after work I go to a cafe, drink some coffee and read for 2 hours straight and do nothing besides reading. This is how I got into the habit of serious reading years ago and I also had a similar problem when starting out. Once you've done this consistently for a few years, you will never have a problem picking up books.

It's the internet and social media that has fucked up your focus and attention span. You might be a peasant now, but this is something you can overcome. Godspeed Anon.

>>14955796
>tldr reading is for fags
nice hot take
>>14955948
Good post

>>14955365
Are you female?

>>14956274
Very funny.

>>14956357
Have you read any of the advice in this thread and used it yet?

>>14956461
Aside from "Read something more interesting" (which only works for leisure reading), the gist of the thread seems to be: "Put distractions away and use a single place for a single task". But it's not like I use my desk for other goals.

the internet fucked up your brain son, renounce digital escapism; social media , mindless browsing on diffrent websites make only a time frame through the day for that shit; don't be afraid of boredom, go to a library and sit down among your peers , pick up new habits and hobbies to replace de digital jew THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE BEING FITNESS, take the time and your brain will heal as mine did , neuroplasticity is not a meme, now i read most of the days at least a 100 pages and that's because I don't have the time to read more because i grew to love it

>>14954504
Your problem is that you dont want to gain knowledge/insights. You want the idea, of an well-read man displaying his intellectual prowess, gaining the admiration of his peers, to actualize.
You delude yourself into wanting to read not for the thing itself but for a further mean. You will never do it this way. Work in a soup kitchen or buy a puppy if all you want is recognition and attention.

op is a female :DD

>>14957173
>I don't know who you are, but trust me when I say that everything you said is actually a lie, this is what you actually are
Thank you for the advice.

>>14956700
how did you do it? I'm thinking of cutting of internet entirely. I can't fight the urge to just shuffle youtube videos or reddit posts, my brain simply can not concentrate on a book.

>>14957173
the reason i actually want to read is to create a sort of persona of me. at the moment im a nobody, i'm just a coomer. what i did notice about two years ago when i read the alchemist, was that i became much more connected to everyday life and was more mentally stable, more confident. The same thing happened when i read Perfume, also The picture of Dorian Grey. I'm not just a hipster

>>14954311
a reassuring post anon

>>14955579
4chan is constant novelty. Same as all social media. I’m not the person you replied to but I imagine that he, like I, has been conditioned to not just expect but require constant dopamine hits, less we start to crave. To fight these cravings requires mental exertion: as does reading the books we would like to have read. The simple fact is that we do not have the capability, the discipline, to persevere and we loathe ourselves for it.

The only cure I can find is to slowly detox one habit after another (to try all at once seems obviously futile) and hope that by the end we’ve developed enough of an appreciation for the new activities not to start the cycle all over again.
4chan is SO low effort

And here I am. I actually LIKE reading, but I don't have the time to go through more than a chapter a day due to my work schedule. I used to read like three books a week back when I was unemployed.

>>14954146
Isolation doesn't work for me. 20 days in and my drive is gone. I skim through the pages without giving a shit about the details. I understand what happened plotwise, but everything else is whatever.

I recharge by being around people for some reason. I like society and I like having people around me.

>>14954146
I'm afraid you're just not a book reader, anon. You're just a book-shopper. It's okay, though, why don't I give you my wishlist and address and you can keep buying books but now someone will read them.