Why reading matters

Z...

The Living Force
FOTCM Member
An excellent documentary that provides great insight into how our brain works, what happens when we read and how it changes our brain, I especially liked the part where they explain connection between reading and nurturing our emphatic abilities.

For some years now I completely abandoned reading fiction thinking that this mainly fosters dissociation, I might re-think this now :)


https://youtu.be/x6_vVn8o654
 
Thanks, this was interesting. The take-home message seems to be that reading fiction will sort of place you in the character's eyes and induce empathy. I guess it doesn't work for psychopaths, and that maybe they would use it to find weaknesses in hypothetical people to exploit. I kept wondering if they would mention mirror neurons, but maybe that hadn't been discovered or researched much in 2009.
 
Z said:
For some years now I completely abandoned reading fiction thinking that this mainly fosters dissociation, I might re-think this now :)

Yes, reading fiction can be positive. It all depends on the fiction and the reason for reading it (escapism vs positive dissociation).

Positive Dissociation?
 
3D Student said:
I kept wondering if they would mention mirror neurons, but maybe that hadn't been discovered or researched much in 2009.

Funny you mentioned this , they just discovered that dogs and cats have them - i think it was mentioned in the documentary I posted on 2D sub-forum.
 
Thanks for sharing! I must say I'm not surprised about the positive effects of reading fiction.

Z said:
An excellent documentary that provides great insight into how our brain works, what happens when we read and how it changes our brain, I especially liked the part where they explain connection between reading and nurturing our emphatic abilities.

For some years now I completely abandoned reading fiction thinking that this mainly fosters dissociation, I might re-think this now :)

I understand that feeling, but I got so much out of reading fiction, I wouldn't want to miss it! Sure, it can lead to dissociation, but so can almost anything else depending on the individual, including reading non-fiction :). I couldn't find the quote, but I think the Cs once said something like "Often, fiction contains a lot of truth" (or something like that). There's also this:

19 July 1997 said:
Q: Can you give any clues about these agents near?

A: Have "look," if one is looking.

Q: What kind of look?

A: Consult fiction for the truth.

Q: You mean like spy stories? If they look like a spy, they are one?


And I think it's so true that fiction can contain a lot of truth! For example, it's great to read Dabrowski's theory of positive disintegration, but it is great as well to experience a positive disintegration "2nd hand" in a novel! Or Campbell's Hero's journey in a fantasy novel, or Gurdjieff's mechanicalnes in a historic novel... And of course, there are so many "colors" and shades in good novels that go beyond theoretical concepts, where you can think about actions and events described and how you see them - was this murder justified? How do people become violent in such a situation? How did a psychopath act in this situation, and how was he revealed? What defines "good" and "bad"? Why did I suspect this guy and he turned out to be a great guy? Did the author get it right with this Character? How does this or that dynamic play out? Etc. Then there's the aspect of empathy or "suffering with the characters" - oftentimes, novels bring up all kinds of emotions in me that I can observe, and provoke interesting discussions. Of course, there needs to be a balance, to get the most out of fiction I think it's important to understand some things theoretically as well, and relate it to personal experiences.

In that spirit, here are a couple of novels that come to mind that I can recommend (mostly fantasy/science fiction...):

  • Dan Simmons: Hyperion triology
  • Michael Ende: Momo
  • Michael Ende: The Neverending Story
  • Stephen Lawhead: Song of Albion triology
  • Stephen Lawhead: Taliesin (and many others by Lawhead!)
  • Robert Jordan: Wheel of time series (warning: 14 books! Better take a month off :D)
  • Hugh Howey: Silo series
  • Of course everything from Tolkien
  • Cixin Liu: The Three-Body Problem
 
Remember what Gurdjieff wrote about the very knowledgeable Persian who expounded on Western writing, showing the shallowness of said writings.
 
ROEL said:
Remember what Gurdjieff wrote about the very knowledgeable Persian who expounded on Western writing, showing the shallowness of said writings.

I think I know what you're saying. If I may elaborate this idea, you are then invited to say whether I'm on the right track. :)

Personally, I would call Gurdjieff "Essentialist" as a way to relate his own fiction with his serious teaching.

Somewhat like comparing these two ideas: "Words are not monotonous, linear phenomena crawling in straight lines across a page, like a monotonous and wide-spreading sea, which is great in extent but shallow in depth..." rather, "...meanings are intricately interwoven, as in a delicate Persian carpet."

This would also make sense of his often alleged condemnation of shallow, secular ideologies that undermine genuine religious spiritual values.

For anyone who already agrees with the above, there's probably no need to read further, but if interested, here's a couple quoted passages from a book, referenced later, that may help clarify what I mean by the 'essentialist' quality. Following the quotes, I'll offer my take on how G might suggest we evaluate our choices of fiction.

Gurdjieff’s writings as a whole—especially the dialogical style and structure of all his writings in their various forms where significant public issues and meanings are intricately interwoven, as in a delicate Persian carpet, into the fabric of everyday personal conversations within and across all the “three brains” of his invented personages — present an ingenious and creative way of exploring and advancing the sociological imagination in comparative and transdisciplinary trajectories.

Gurdjieff was an ashokh. His text is not confined to the printed word, nor even to the oral tradition he left behind, but is also written in the physical movements, mental exercises, emotional dances, and the music of a legacy that radically challenges the narrow and dualistic Western notions of the self and society, and thereby sociology. His mystical tales—linking the most intimate personal troubles with ever larger, world-historical, and even cosmically-conscious, public issues concerning humanity as a whole — are highly innovative and colorful exercises in alternative Eastern sociological imaginations meeting their ultimate micro and macro horizons.

IOW, Gurdjieff wasn't concerned with any kind or type of B.S. He wanted everything he said, did and wrote to communicate something meaningful and be relevant to life - our personal life and life in a wider context.

To contrast his own teaching from other mystical paths in pursuit of human spiritual awakening and development, Gurdjieff reportedly distinguished three traditional mystical ways of the fakir, the monk, and the yogi from one another (Ouspensky 1949:44), depending on whether the physical, the emotional, or the intellectual center of the human organism is respectively exercised as a launching ground to attain ultimate, all-round spiritual development of “man’s hidden possibilities” (47). He argued that these three one-sided ways toward self-perfection are more prone to failure since the required trainings in each take longer (thus are often unrealizable during a single lifetime) and their adepts become often vulnerable to habituating forces upon reentry into social life. In contrast, Gurdjieff reportedly advocated an alternative “fourth way” approach characterized by the parallel development of the physical, emotional, and intellectual centers of the organism not in retreat from, but amid, everyday life.

My take after comparing descriptions of Gurdjieff's own writings with descriptions of his Fourth Way teaching is that Gurdjieff wouldn't trash any work other than his own; rather he'd probably just see the usefulness in more limited terms whereas his would be more holistic in nature, thus more useful.

As a result, G would probably advise that we choose our fiction on the same basis that we choose his Fourth Way: as something that, when we "come back to reality" after reading or working, we are much less "vulnerable to habituating forces" of everyday life. This might be another way to explain why reading matters.

Just my thoughts. Other views also welcomed.



Full quoted passages and phrases in quotes referenced from Gurdjieff and Hypnosis: A Hermeneutic Study, Mohammad H. Tamdgidi, Palgrave Macmillan, (2009, 2012)_https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0230102026
 
Not everybody gains something (i.e. knowledge, insight, empathy) from an intellectual exercise. For some people it is just an intellectual exercise that they succeed at and 'master'. And that is all they will ever 'gain' from it. They can 'tick the box' at being 'successful' and sometimes justify their superiority over other people. Many academics are this way, as are those who seek to emulate them, and/or put them on a pedestal.

I think that in order to gain knowledge, insight or empathy, a person has to have an ability to develop these things in the first place. Reading may act as a catalyst towards that, rather than an end, in and of itself.
 
BTW, I came across this free course on Literature and Mental Health. In case there was someone interested in...

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/literature?utm_campaign=Courses+feed&utm_medium=courses-feed&utm_source=courses-feed
 
Tristan said:
BTW, I came across this free course on Literature and Mental Health. In case there was someone interested in...

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/literature?utm_campaign=Courses+feed&utm_medium=courses-feed&utm_source=courses-feed

Thank you very much Tristan and Z for starting this thread. the course you put the link Tristan seems so interesting! I will follow it, for me reading is one of the most beautiful and important thing in life. Thank you!
 
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