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Well–Read: Instructions for Reading
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by
Pulse Team
October 23 – 29, 2008 |
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Reading is a practice. And by that, I mean you get better at it the more you do it. Over the years, I’ve spent a fair amount of time reading. Now before you think that I’m a dusty book snob, entertain the possibility that we all do a fair share more reading than we admit. It is true that I read a lot of books, but in our society, we read many things in the course of day.
We read signs, advertisements, newspapers, magazines, telephone books, menus, instruction manuals, websites, blogs, and the list goes on and on and on. Although many have feared the arrival of general illiteracy due to the disappearance of the book, all you have to do is venture into a book store, used or new, to know that there is a market for words.
Words matter to me because I’ve spent a lot of time immersed in them. I’ve always paid attention to how others express themselves. In the course of the day I read a lot of different things. For example, I receive a word every morning from the Oxford English Dictionary that I diligently read, even though I am rarely able to imagine a scenario in which I could use the word. On September 25, I learned that the “quetzalcoatlus” was “a giant pterosaur of the late Cretaceous period, and the largest ever flying animal with a wingspan of up to 15 m.” Very useful party conversation tidbit, indeed! Also, I receive a book review every day that, nine times out of 10, I read. These reviews are other people’s writings about the experience of reading other people’s books. And 99 times out of 100, I don’t read the actual book. Then, there are all of the local newspapers that arrive on my porch like a swarm of insects. I make my way through one, swat it into the recycling bin, and another arrives. Then I read blogs and websites that I admire. Then magazine articles, and finally, there are books. So, there are days when I feel like what I mostly do is read.
I bought a new chair the other day because I spend a lot of time at my computer reading and writing. When I brought it home, I unpacked it from the box. After I had removed the ridiculous amount of styrofoam, cardboard, and plastic that encased it, I was left with a skeleton of a chair and a set of instructions. I opened the instructions, quickly consulted steps one through six, scanned the parts, and declared myself ready. I inserted the casters into the base. I rolled the base around. Everything seemed fine. Allen key in hand, I began to quickly and efficiently bolt all of the pieces together. Washers here, bolts there, screw, screw, and, at a certain point, I thought to myself, “Man, this is so easy!” I should have known at that point that something was wrong, but eternal optimist that I am, I carried on. I popped the top of the chair onto the base. I sat triumphantly on the chair as I spun around. Even though my head was spinning, when I glanced down, a chill went up my spine because there, on the floor, were extra parts. In the past, I might have ignored this fact, deemed the offending pieces inessential, but being who I am now, I knew what I had to do.
I reread the instructions. In garbled technical language, I found what I had missed. In step two, there was a set of four washers (labeled collectively H2) that were paired with four bolts (labeled mysteriously 2–J1), and I had left them out. Frantic now, I turned the chair upside down to see if there was an easy way to get the washers on. As it turned out, from reading the instructions step by step and looking at the chair, it had been designed so that each step built on the previous one. So, I had to undo all the work I had done. Unscrewing, unscrewing, struggling with bolts, stopping washers from rolling under the couch, until the whole assembly was laid bare. I felt like the last 40 minutes had disappeared into a rabbit hole.
As I reassembled the chair, I read and reread each step before continuing. When I finished putting it together and sat down, I was reminded that reading is really about paying attention. If what you are reading matters to you, concentrate on it. Now, if only I could follow my own instructions for reading when reading instructions. P
[JON EBEN FIELD]
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