📚 I Read 200 Books During Quarantine; How It Rewired My Mind
For many, during the 2020 mandated quarantine, life came to a halt.
For many, during the 2020 mandated quarantine, life came to a halt.
That was no exception for me as well. Life was very busy before the shutdown. With all that extra time, I finally had a moment to catch up on some reading. However, I never anticipated reading 200 books in a year would reshape my thinking.
So am I now “woke?” No! I despise that word and what it represents. Woke is a new religion, and politicians are the gods. Most people who claim to be woke, usually watch a single alarming youtube video and gather with their herd for confirmation. Confirmation biases fed by alarmists still leaves the herd in a dream state.
So instead, I will humbly use the word “enlightened,” while remebering what Socrates once said,
“I know only one thing: that I know nothing.” Because the more I read, the more I know that I know nothing.
Many of the books I read are about Philosophy, History, Science, and Historical Religion. The four subjects mentioned here are all closely related once you get into them. And delving in, while into my 40s, while I already questioned organized religion, has left me some days wishing I had never lifted the veil of reality.
Word by word, one thought-provoking paragraph after another, eventually, I could no longer see the world the same. Stripped from oblivion, my own long-held beliefs started to crumble.
Ignorance truly is bliss when you bathe in it wearing a blindfold and armor of incognizance.
Today, I am naked of the false ideas that used to clothe me. However, I can not claim to be happier. The burden of knowledge has left me feeling melancholic.
“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
Here are some of the more memorable books I read through the quarantine, with my favorite quote from each:
“As he thinks, so he is; as he continues to think, so he remains.”
― James Allen, As a Man Thinketh
“Why haven’t we hired you yet?” President Obama said. “I kinda thought that’s what I was here for,” Taylor replied. — Tom Clynes, The Boy Who Played with Fusion
“Historians and researchers postulate that the Black Death originated in Central Asia, specifically in Mongolia and western China.”
― Henry Freeman, The Black Death: A History From Beginning to End
“I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past.”
― Patrick Henry, Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death
“The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.”
― Sun Tzu, The Art of War
“The future is not a gift-it is an achievement.”
― Albert Einstein, The Einstein Theory Of Relativity
“Forget Jesus, the stars died so you could be born.”
― Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing
“People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion. Einstein”
― John Gribbin, The Time Illusion
“Words can be meaningless. If they are used in such a way that no sharp conclusions can be drawn.”
― Richard P. Feynman, The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist
“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”
― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
“True science literacy is less about what you know and more about how your brain is wired for asking questions.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Letters from an Astrophysicist
“From the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom,”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense
“If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future?”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“So remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up. Unleash your imagination. Shape the future.”
― Stephen Hawking, Brief Answers to the Big Questions
“One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die.”
― Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
“If there is design in the universe, then this self-existent, eternal something that is responsible for generating the universe as we find it must be a self-existent, eternal, intelligent being, not merely a something.”
― R.C. Sproul, Does God Exist?
“Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven
“You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
“The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you. — NDT”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
“In the beginning, there was physics.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution
“I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living. I see others paradoxically getting killed for the ideas or illusions that give them a reason for living (what is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying). I therefore conclude that the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
“Directly translated, “Genghis Khan” means “Universal Ruler”, and the young Mongol man who took this title upon himself was named Temujin.”
— Walter J. Scott, Genghis Khan (History’s Greatest Conquerors Book 1)
“that all persons held as slaves” within the rebellious areas “are, and henceforward shall be free.” — Abraham Lincoln, The Emancipation Proclamation
“The President had been shot in the back part of the head, behind the ear.”
— Charles Augustus Leale, Lincoln’s Last Hours
“…Andrew Johnson was never supposed to become President, and after the debacle at the inauguration, Lincoln largely sidelined Johnson, only meeting with him a single time…” — Charles River Editors, The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
“But my later experience has taught me two lessons: first, that things are seen plainer after the events have occurred; second, that the most confident critics are generally those who know the least about the matter criticised.”
― Grant, Ulysses S., Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant: All Volumes
“It is an exquisite pleasure to a cowardly nature to have some creature to torment; and there is this nemesis about cruelty that it engenders an appetite which, like that for alcoholic , for ever demands increased indulgence.”
― Sarah Hopkins Bradford, The Moses of Her People by Harriet Tubman
“Yes,’ she said, ‘the rich rob the poor, and the poor rob one another.”
― Sojourner Truth, The Narrative of Sojourner Truth: Including Her Speech Ain’t I a Woman?
“I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes, — a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, — a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds, — and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of the slaveholders find the strongest protection. Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others.”
― Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed.”
― Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery
“Carver had been troubled by a sense he should be doing more to help his people.”…“Go out in the world and give your learning back to our people. They’re starving for a little learning.” — Aunt Mariah’s words in Cheri Colburn, George Washington Carver: Grandfather of Sustainability.
“Nothing can be taken for granted. Our individual liberties are not givens. Democracy is not something we can take for granted. Neither is peace, and neither is prosperity.” — German Chancellor Angela Merkel 2019 speech. Hourly History, World War II: A History from Beginning to End by Hourly History
“Fascism has discovered that freedom — of press, speech, assembly — is a potential danger to its own security.”
― Time Inc., Adolph Hitler: TIME Person of the Year 1938
“Some people say that the study of history is pointless as it tells us nothing about the present. I disagree with that analysis. If we want to understand things as they are now, then we must study history to understand just how we got to where we are in the present.” — Stephen McGrann, Voices of the Holocaust
“An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.”
― Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning
“I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.”
― Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl
“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.” — Alan Turing, Charles River Editors
Books have an impact on the world. Ever since the modern Gutenberg printing press of the mid-1400s, the Opinion Revolution has reshaped how we should view the world.
As the Holy Bible was one of the first books to be mass-produced, many counterarguments also helped end the Medieval era. The Scientific revolution was born only 100 years after worldwide book distribution.
Today, the Scientific Revolution has given us access to the world’s largest libraries on the planet. We can tuck away the world’s knowledge in our pockets and pull out information as needed. This has been both good and bad for society.
Since the digital era, the Opinion Revolution has exploded. Both facts and opinions now blur the landscape all across “Flat-Earth” — see what I did there? LOL. ...all across the globe. As conspiracy theories take shape overnight and remain held up by confirmation bias, many people have data but still lack critical thinking skills.
Regardless, the world’s memory is at our fingertips. We spread ideas like viruses. We should also take the time to absorb that information and reflect. Combined with critical thinking, we will be the super-humans of the future. Either that, or we will be our own demise — the choice is up to us.
As I relearn history in my 40s, I become deeply saddened. But a generation without the memory of its past is a generation of amnesia who are destined to repeat the same mistakes.
Reading 200 books while life was on pause through the quarantine has given me a new outlook on life. I don’t like the lens through which I now see the world, but I also never want to return to my ignorant state of mind. Enlightenment is not a happy place. Instead, enlightenment is a melancholy place of responsibility. Now that I know, I feel compelled to act.
Writing is my action. And writing is the footprint we leave in stone as we die. Will you leave a permanent footprint in society when you are gone? Or are you swimming across open water where your wake makes a temporary ripple for a short moment in time?
For every author who wrote a book, we owe them our time and attention to read and decipher their meanings. Authors don’t write their worst ideas down. Instead, they are giving up their best thoughts. For that, we should take notice and carefully allow books to rewire our minds where reshaping is necessary. Either that or remain in our blissful ignorance before turning the first page.
“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”
― John Locke