sundoku and the importance of books you have but have not read
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Tsundoku and the importance of the books you have but did not read
How important it is to have something that reminds you how much you do not know
You are not a real book lover if you do not have at least 5-10 books in your house, that you have not read yet and they look at you critically from their shelves, when you buy a few more books and place them next to them. This "look", of course, fills you with doubts about whether you will ever be able to read them all.
The statistician Nassim Nicholas Taleb has given what is happening to you the name "anti-library", while he comes to take away from you every negative emotion that he causes you. First of all, Taleb reminds us of the man with the largest anti-library that has ever existed, Uberto Echo, who had done the calculations and knew very well that he would never be able to read all the books he had. In other words, for Echo all the value of the volume of his books was not in what he had read, but in everything he wished to read.
On this occasion, Taleb comments in his book "The Black Swan": "Read books have much less value than unread books. Your library should include as many things as you do not know, as far as your finances, mortgage rate and current real estate market allow. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the longer the series of unread books. "Let's call this collection of unread books an anti-library."
However, if you do not like the term "library", Kevin Mimes suggests the Japanese term "tsundoku" in an article in the New York Times. The term in Japan is used to describe piles of books we have bought but not read, and when it was "born" in the 19th century it had a negative and ironic meaning.
Mimes considers tsundoku to be diametrically opposed to book mania, the tendency to buy many books as part of a collection and never read them. However, Jessica Stillman believes that owning books and reading books are two inseparable acts. It typically states that children growing up in environments where there are 80 to 350 books develop much better their writing, arithmetic and communication skills, as reading ends up being part of their routine. In addition, research has shown that reading has benefits such as reducing stress, meeting social needs, developing social skills and empathy, and improving cognitive skills.
In an article, Stillman comments that it is understandable and human for unread books to bother us because they remind us of our inadequacies, but notes: "All those books you have not read are really a sign of your ignorance. "But knowing how ignorant you are puts you in a much better position than the vast majority of other people."
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