Screen Reading
When I was in Grade 9 in 2004, I used the then popular peer-to-peer file sharing software Kazaa to download and read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on my dad's new 1,000 dirham HP palmtop. Well, there was no way I was going to buy the book. I treated the book like pulp fiction. In fact, you get more out of a book or novel if you treat it like pulp fiction, I find.
In the beginning, after every 10 pages or so of reading the e-book, my eyes used to get very dry and would start to burn. My eye power was already negative 2.5 and 2.75 by the time. To soothe my eyes, I'd play solitaire for about five minutes before getting back to my reading. When I was almost done reading the book after about two days, my mum caught me playing solitaire over breakfast and naturally assumed I had been doing nothing but playing solitaire all day on the palmtop. She then proceeded to promptly ban me from ever touching my dad's palmtop again. "Rajesh, you don't need a thousand dirham device to play solitaire!"
About a year and a few months down the road, we switched countries and my dad bought me my first desktop computer which I could use all to myself. This was Grade 10, arguably a little too late for a personal computer. I downloaded Kevin Yank's excellent "Build Your Own Database Driven Website Using PHP & MySQL" and finished reading the entire book in just under 10 days. This was on an LG CRT monitor. The kind that makes your cornea shrivel up after just an hour.
Sure, I spent a lot of time with watering eyes. I remember, my eyes were permanently red for a certain duration in Grade 11. But I kept reading. I couldn't get enough. Because Kevin's e-book was in PDF format, I couldn't change the white background, so I converted the PDF into HTML and applied my own custom CSS style sheet. I discovered that wheat-coloured text on a black background was much more suitable for bulk consumption.
Over the next two years, I ended up reading about 20-25 e-books back-to-back. I had the PDF I was reading always open so all my free time, even a minute, was spent reading. The books I read were mostly about PHP, MySQL, CSS, HTML, XML, Subversion, Ruby, etc. — the bulk of which form the expertise section of my resume today. The monetary price of all these books totaled a grand $0.00. The actual price should have been over $500.
I think the fact that the e-books that I illegally downloaded were all free is a crucial one. Because they were free, I was able to treat all these books as if they were pulp fiction: I'd read the books as fast as I could, suck as much juice from them, and then throw them away. The best part is that I always read a book only if I truly wanted to. The minute I came across a book that sucked even slightly, I'd throw it away without hesitation and go find something else better. It's a lot harder doing that with a book I had paid for. Like Life of Pi for example. I think if I had read the free electronic version of Life of Pi, I'd have deleted the PDF half-way through my reading.
I think it is important to read as much as you can. Especially the free stuff. Especially the stuff that you genuinely think is good. Because that's when you learn the most. And in the shortest amount of time. You can't necessarily go about printing everything you want to read. That would be a lot of paper. And paper sucks because it's very hard to find a particular paragraph you want to read again, sometimes after 8-9 months.
When I moved to University, I had my first LCD screen that came part of the laptop my dad lent me. This was a big leap from the LG and NEC CRT monitors I had been used to. I could now read twice as much before my eyes needed a break. This was a huge improvement and I only had everything to gain by taking advantage of it.
You want to master the skill of reading off your screen. I know the exact brightness my screen needs to be. I know the exact angle my screen needs to be tilted. I know when I need to change the background colour and to what. I know what the ideal font and the font size are. I know exactly how frequently I need to blink. I know exactly how often I need to look away. I keep my venetians open so I can stare into the distance every now and then.
Today, I spend a number of hours each week reading blogs, articles, essays, patents, research papers, short stories, news, wikipedia, magazines, comics, course notes, lecture slides, and emails. And all of this happens off my laptop screen. I can go on for about 6-7 hours staring at a screen with just two to three 5-minute breaks. Let's face it: if I had found reading off a screen uncomfortable and was too lazy to do anything about it, I would have never come across J.D.Salinger and Paul Graham — two of the foremost writers I have encountered to date.
The crux of the matter is that society and technology are moving more and more towards screen-based information delivery. So let's get used to it. Better now than later, right?
At the end of the day, he who is most well-read tends to be the best at what he does.
Free Associations
MALCOLM: Cole, have you ever heard of something called free-writing? Or free-association writing?
Cole shakes his head, "No."
MALCOLM: It's when you put a pencil in your hand and put the pencil to a paper and you just start writing... You don't think about what you're writing... You don't read over what you're writing... You just keep your hand moving.
Cole has become very still. He looks right at Malcolm.
MALCOLM: After awhile if you keep your hand moving long enough, words and thoughts start coming out you didn't even know you had in you... Sometimes they're things you heard from somewhere... Sometimes they're feelings deep inside... (beat) Have you ever done any free- association writing, Cole?
Beat. Cole nods, "Yes."
MALCOLM: What'd you write?
COLE: Words.
MALCOLM: What kind of words?
COLE: Upset words.
Beat.
MALCOLM: Did you ever write any upset words before your father left?
Beat.
COLE: I don't remember.
The Sixth Sense is one of the movies I truly appreciate for its stellar direction and thoughtful screenplay. My favorite scene is whose dialog is above. For a number of reasons. Mostly because of the inserted cut that is used to provide Cole's mum's (Lynn's) perspective while Malcolm (Bruce Willis) explains to Cole what free writing means in voice-over. The camera slowly moves around Cole's bedroom, a technique known as "long take", and eventually stumbles upon some free-association work of Cole's. The camera then abruptly zooms in twice, known as a "quick cut", on Cole's writing. We are able to read what Cole has written. The horror at that moment is flabbergasting.
The irony is that Malcolm couldn't have possibly known about Cole's free association writing habit unless Cole's mum Lynn had told Malcolm about it. But we find out only at the end of the movie that Lynn couldn't have possibly spoken with Malcolm. We are then led to wonder how Malcolm knows all the things he does. Especially how he knows that Cole left some of his work lying around only so that his mum would find it while cleaning his room. I find this scene to be the most disturbing sequence in the film. This is really an amazing piece of direction.
I've been doing a lot of free association writing ever since I watched this movie. I don't publish any of them (except this one time) for obvious reasons, but today I feel like publishing one of my many samples. The only difference is that instead of using pencil and paper, I use my keyboard and laptop.
today is the big day for all of us. today we stand on the shoulders of giants, peering into space, peering downwards at all the planets beneath us, at all the superficial traits and masters and slaves of the world. in this world, i can see, i see a beautiful nature, a wisdom unfathomed, beauty, thresholds. my pen starts to write, i see bountiful pleasures, pleasures i simply cannot describe, a beautiful city, all the beautiful men, all the beautiful people, nature, gardens, flowers. the lovely growth of our technology, our egos, ourselves, our ability to reflect, our superfluous vocabulary, our emotions, our hatred for all those we love, our monstrousness. it brings with it a selflessness never encountered thus far, a wholesome meal, a good square lunch, a full stomach.today i feel like a joyce, tomorrow a sheldon, the day after a rowling. full of fantasies, full of hopes, full of false beliefs. and that is what which defines me.
welcome to my world. my very beautiful world.
MALCOLM: If you keep your hand moving long enough, words and thoughts start coming out you didn't even know you had in you... Sometimes they're things you heard from somewhere... Sometimes they're feelings deep inside...
