Why bother reading if we are going to forget what we read?
Reading is intellectual compounding and everyone agrees but everyone also agrees that the majority of what we read will be forgotten.
This is true. We cannot remember everything. We won’t remember everything.
But reading isn’t merely remembering stuff, that’s rote culture, popularised by schools and academics.
Reading enables your mind to think on different tangents. There are only finite emotions you can go through your entire life. There is a finite wavelength through which your emotional bandwidth can reach because that’s what you have seen in your surroundings so that’s what you have embraced in you since childhood.
These aren’t the only emotions you should feel, though. The world lacks empathy and by empathy, I do not mean feel pity on someone. The world lacks people who can get into someone’s shoes and understand the depth of their problem. They cannot understand because they haven’t a clue. You can only empathize with the problems when you have felt them.
But then you cannot wish for every type of emotional problem in your life. Mathematically, it’s not possible to go through everything in life.
Reading stories enables the part of your brain that feels trauma, and emotions and therefore adds empathy. Not reading stories is like living in a 100-room mansion and only using the rooms that you need. You are right to not use those rooms but imagine if you did, imagine if you could find a use for all the rooms.
You must have noticed that I haven’t touched the informational aspect of reading. That’s because it’s one of the most talked about facts of reading and the least important. If you truly need something in life you will find a way to gain insights about it. The internet is a great tool for that. You shouldn’t worry about information too much.
So, when you are done reading story after story, biography after biography, you might not retain every piece of information from it. Only the key facts probably.
But your mind will go through so many tangents that you will come out as a changed person. The mansion that is your brain becomes more useful the more you utilize it.
Read good stories. Read every day.