I have noticed an interesting trend in our discourse about reading lately - there seems to be more and more moralizing and virtue signaling. So much self-help and "motivation porn" focuses on reading books, as if it's a magical activity that will unlock the best version of oneself. It's part of the new aspirational message - imagine yourself rich, happy, driving a Lamborghini, living off dividends from your stonks, and
reading books. The people pushing that message get lots of eyeballs on their content because too many people have come to see reading as a lofty, obscure activity only fully accessible to the morally (and therefore financially) superior.
It's almost like reading has been elevated to a kind of rare alchemy, whereby you can unlock secret cheat codes to life. The feeling that you're in rareified air to actually read books. I think anyone who regularly reads books for pleasure should easily see through this - reading is just a hobby. It's a fun, intellectually challenging, infinitely variable hobby with a very long and distinguished history. But ultimately you could learn just as much about yourself and the world by doing pottery, woodworking, kayaking, knitting or whatever else you like to do with your spare time. Making it into such a self-serious pursuit kills most of the joy (and value, for that matter).
Let's try to make reading commonplace, something we almost take for granted. Of course I read books, you read books, we all read books. Everybody poops, and everybody reads books. Wouldn't that be great? In that world, a Youtube commercial or Medium article promising that you can unlock secret lamborghinis on the moon by reading exactly 18.75 books a week would suddenly be absurdly transparent in setting off everyone's bullshit meters. The question "read any good books lately?" could take on less of a challenging air and more conversational, the way so many people can casually drop 10 quotes from their favorite Netflix show they've been binge watching during their commute to work.
Longform reading is magic because it's rarer than ever - it's an art now, according to people like this author. That's why we have so much performative reading, a cheap replacement for the real thing. I'd rather reading be boring and commonplace, something we do as easily as breathing.