By Stephen Smoot
In recent years, a social media movement called “looksmaxing” has emerged and grown in which young men take increasingly extreme and bizarre measures to appear a certain select way that they feel will make them more appealing to women.
This includes even breaking facial bones and resetting them to achieve whatever look they feel is most desired on top of rigid diet and exercise routines.
At the end of the day, they work very hard and spend a lot of money on a delusion that such steps will make them attractive. It is also ephemeral because the youthful look dies quickly when age and time sets in.
One does not need to say much to illustrate the stupidity of this in terms of building attractiveness. As far as respect is concerned, it is quite doubtful that telling a woman that you intentionally broke your facial bones to look better will earn respect.
A better way to spend the hours to gain respect, confidence, and possibly even position is directed reading.
Or you can call it “booksmaxing.”
Educators want students to enjoy reading for its own sake, as a sign of good character and high intelligence. They unintentionally sell reading as if those students have potentially the same love of learning that they have, and that books will serve as a haven of mystery, learning, and entertainment like it did for them.
The problem with the 21st century lies in the unfortunate fact that reading, for the first time since the Guttenburg press, has real competition in terms of being able to grip and hold onto a mind. Television and motion pictures never replaced true reading as the smartphone has.
Society faces serious problems if reading and basic literacy fall aside as worthy intellectual pursuits.
Studies for the past several years have shown that reading on screens, and also not reading much at all, results in brains less capable of processing information and understanding the world. The very building blocks that build a brain to its potential do not fall into place without reading from a printed page. Only hands on learning and related work develops the brain and its capability to understand and function in the world as well as reading actual books.
The smartest of students come from either reading real books or working with their hands and brains together in farming or the trades. Some of America’s greatest minds in fields such as law and government started off as farmers, combining work experience and book learning. John Adams loved the feel of manure fertilizer in his hands as much as reading or writing a book.
The Atlantic has repeatedly sounded the siren on the abandonment of reading by the younger generations. They call it “post literate” but history knows these periods well.
It calls them “Dark Ages.”
An intentional program of study starting in youth and extending through life does the same, maybe more, for building the brain as physical workouts build the body.
Reading the right kinds of books can make any brain more powerful, more capable, and better at besting others in the fields of endeavor that really count.
For example, the philosophers and many of the other writers of the classical period, as well as the great religious minds of the Middle Ages, focused on the fundamentals of knowledge, of faith, of humanity itself.
Reading Aristotle, Seneca, Cicero, Saint Augustine, and others takes focus, concentration, and brain power. It brings a two fold benefit in that it adds to a person’s knowledge, but also builds brain power because the works read force the brain to think about concepts both broad and deep. Every thought used in analysis and examination strengthens the brain.
Another benefit from reading the great thinkers and minds comes in seeing how others approach a certain fundamental issue or problem. The mass of writers in Western Civilization gave great consideration to pretty much every single problem that a human being might encounter. Reading from these minds gives ones own brain experience with the problem, perhaps preparing the mind for when it meets the same issue later on.
And the biggest advantage towards a well-read person is mastery of not only knowledge, but concepts, not only language, but how to most effectively use it, not only teaching human history, but guiding a person for the future.
Another deep well of learning where the average person may find benefit comes in biographies and autobiographies of great men and women. Reading about their personalities, how they approached problems, how they dealt with successes and failures gives guidance on what to do or what not to do. It can also provide insight on human nature itself.
Literature may tell fictional stories, but the best of writers reveal truths about humanity. No greater poet ever lived than David, author of the Psalms. No written work has had the same historical or cultural impact as the Psalms in all of human history because his work straddles the line between an autobiography of personal anguish combined with great literary expression.
No author ever illustrated human nature as well as William Shakespeare. Though his plays mostly came from literary portrayals of historical people and events, they achieved most in articulating human archetypes. No other writer has more vividly portrayed the deep recesses of the human personality or soul as Shakespeare. His characters remain a pool of stock archetypes that modern writers steal, often unknowingly, so deep have they immersed themselves into the culture.
Also, they are based on very real human traits that the precise and insightful mind of the writer put to paper and stage. Know the literary archetypes he wrote on, and one will better understand humanity itself even in the everyday.
Reading books with the aim of challenging and building the mind will give those who undertake the task with a more powerful mind. It will equip the person with advantages over others that can help them win jobs or debates. It will provide a helpful perspective on one’s own life just as well as it does history, culture, or current events.
While reading any book will develop the mind somewhat, just like working out, the bigger challenge, the bigger reward. Also, the beginner must work their way up to the bigger challenges.
Like building a body, building a mind takes time and dedication. It takes a plan of priorities based on goals and desired outcomes. One can’t just read simplistic materials and expect best results.
Unlike building the body, the effects of building a brain last throughout life. Age always beats a built up body at some point, but a well cultivated mind continues to grow unless sapped by disease.
Making reading for building brain capacity a priority will not fail to give the person undertaking the challenge a smarter individual more capable of understanding the world around them and making the most of opportunities presented.
Simply put, the developed brain, whether from the right kind of reading or the right kind of hands-on work, gives the person who has it significant advantages over those who have not developed their minds similarly. In today’s world, the notion of advantage conferred is a better selling point on reading than traditional ways of trying to get kids to want to read.
Doing it because it’s a good thing to do is great, but kids need to see how reading can make them winners in lif. Also, if they do not challenge themselves in reading or hands-on work, they will fall behind those who undertake these activities.
It is also important to understand that one must read beyond what schools assign. It must be a lifestyle, not an assignment from the teacher, to provide the most benefit.
Reading well and/or hands-on education and work helps one to end up smarter, likely more successful, and you don’t have to break the bones of your face to see desired results.
