If you consume media not just to be entertained but more to better yourself that's wonderful and you deserve a cookie. If you read books MORE than you watch screens, that’s super amazing and you deserve a big fat brownie with gold flakes on top. Either that or full of pot. And / or our respect. Or all of the above.
We’ve previously touched on the unfortunate truism that few read anything anymore. A night show in 2020 (during global Covid lockdowns when people were more home based than otherwise usually would be anyway) interviewed people cold on the street asking the question “what was the last book you read?” and it was followed by almost exclusively un-articulate answers, with a few clear and concise responses being those that quickly admitted to reading nothing.
One of our colleagues who’s created a variety of output has written several books, only one of which got to successful publishing, and has been by far, their least selling product. Even though it appears on the surface that there are many New York Times bestselling authors out there, the reality is that it’s rare for a book to sell more than 300 copies in its entire lifetime. That’s why the selections at almost all bookstores, larger chains or even smaller locales are very narrow and the publishing industry has as many stinking backwaters as any other.
One of our societal problems is a lack of philosophers. To actually become a lover of, and embodier of, and communicator of wisdom (Trivium) we must read extensively, over our whole lifetime. This lack of reading is mainly in regards to traditional books, but a wonderful now seachange that technology does deserve credit for is the spoken word - as podcasts for example are now more ubiquitous and prevalent than live broadcast television. Hallelujah!
Outside of personal experience, and internal communication, the spoken word from one inquiring mind to another, has been how knowledge is transmitted. Through time this was done around campfires, mystery schools, other philosophical institutions of higher learning, and books. Modern versions of those things still do exist, but there’s also this modern advent of archives now existing through podcasts and audiobooks. So the spoken word, which has always been of predominant importance through time, only continues to amplify with technological advancement.
The sense of listening has such a primary importance because listening is how humans input information most of the time while also having the ability to do something else. Because life is short and the internet has allowed for a deluge of great content in the form of audiobooks, lectures, podcasts, as well as other spoken word yummy audible knowledge, there is more than you can ever listen to in a lifetime and there are only so many hours in the day with that short life. Yet just like with all mediums, any form of spoken word can deliver quality or hot garbage. Radio, which has now been around for the better part of a century, is a perfect example. But if you’re constantly listening to yummy, informative, and expansive spoken word content, whatever the medium, you deserve an affogato.
Podcasts typically are interviews. Or sometimes individual, off the cuff, or else written content delivered to an audience similar to traditional lectures, sermons, stand up comedy routines, or speeches. But non fiction books, for thousands of years, have been a deeper, longer form medium for the voice to be transmitted. So we would actually place books as having the capability of being superior in depth to almost any other medium. Some of the world’s most bold and profound content comes from pros which require multiple reads over numerous years. That takes a significant amount of time and life, to some extent, is short. And since we have this reading barrier problem which causes a large drop in audience, there remains a problem that many books, especially more rare ones, don’t have audiobook equivalents.
If you’re a bibliophile or any form of book lover, you’ve probably come to realize that in the 21st century most digital versions of these books can be found or converted to audiobooks. This was all discussed in one of our previous essays entitled “reading through your ears” but there’s also now technology to easily turn any text that is copy/pastable into a now not horribly robotic but actually listenable synthetic voice audiobook. We personally share books we’ve found valuable, who’s authors have passed on, with patrons of our work and that entails sharing the PDf version (not under copyright - to honor creators income streams) as well as audiobook versions which if not already available, we will make our own audiobook versions of and share those audio files as well.
Touch is some folk’s prefered sense and some are able to just straight up soak up information more via conventional reading. So there will also continue to be purests for not only traditional reading but also via physical paper. In the interest of resource depletion, cell phones and e-readers certainly do require mineral extraction but less cutting down of trees. As digital devices have proven they are the forefront for the majority, analoge copies will always have their place - not to mention in case of electromagnetic pulse attack or grid collapse, but are now secondary to reading off any sort of screen. All though that is a joke, here's a legitimate criticism of traditional analogue reading which is not. It’s a bit like running because it’s very healthy but over long periods of time, can cause physical strain. Audiobooks have a great advantage over traditional books in the sense that you can be listening to an audiobook while doing other things. Going to the gym, gardening, driving etc… So they allow for multitasking and thus increased productivity.
Another unique advantage of listening to any spoken word source is it also allows for soaking up the audio at faster speed. Seeking out media playing tools that allow you to change the speed of a source in increments. As you try this, you get more productive at it and can get through many more sources in the day. It really depends on the density of the material and how quickly the speaker is delivering the information, but we can listen easily to 5/10 podcast episodes in one day for example because we’ve worked up the skill set to ear canal input most sources at double speed if not 2.5x speed or rarely but occasionally even 3x speed.
Anyone truly serious about their spiritual development will know study is a key component of that. Which, outside of direct communication, arrives through the eye or the ears, or if you're blind, through the fingers, from braille books. So having the tool of speed adjustment can be beneficial for having to do multiple passes over a pros over the years.
If we ever go back and listen to ourselves in one of these essays, for example, we never do it at regular speed. It's a bit painful to listen at normal speed actually. So we praise any service, such as a video or spoken word app, which allows for speed changes as a valuable life-saving tool. Or at very least a three-hour podcast now turning into an hour and a half long podcast instantly. Every minute you save, is another minute you can have to yourself. Or another minute for study. So narrowing the spectrum of the inner juju juicy material you input, combined with a faster delivery of it to save time and increase efficiency has the potential to send you much further along the way to being philosophically astute.
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