Books That Change The Way You See The World

I was having a conversation with someone today about books that change the way you see the world.

I think everyone who is intellectually engaged with life has had the experience of reading something or listening to an audiobook or even coming away from a movie and everything feels different.

The experience of it stays with you in a deeper way, so that you don’t just remember an idea from the book, but you remember where you were, what you felt like, and can flash back to that experience.

I remember listening to the audiobook for Six Pillars of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Brandon and having an experience like that, reading Atlas Shrugged and Crime and Punishment, I remember watching that Matrix at a kid at a friend’s house. I would have been 9 or 10 at the time, but I still remember what his living room was like while watching it.

I’ve written a few things about the four ways of knowing recently and what clicked for me today was that these life-altering books impact us on a deeper level than just learning new information, facts, or stories (propositional knowing and semantic memory). They impact us at a much deeper level and the type of memory we integrate them with is episodic memory.

Memories that we can picture and relive, like driving a car by yourself for the first time. Not all of these memories are life-changing moments, but I find that experience of seeing the world through fresh eyes leads to us retaining our experiences in this way.

I think this is one of the things I love about travel because you have places that are so linked with ideas. I remember reading Atlas Shrugged on many long-bus trips around Patagonia or listening to Louis L’Amour stories while driving between my home and Vancouver on long family road trips.

The stories and ideas infuse with your experience of life and change who you are. That’s why I think speed reading and speed listening to books is completely missing the mark. Because a book is not information to be downloaded but something to be experienced over time as it interacts with your life.

So take your time with it, spend time staring out the window of a bus after an impactful quote or wandering down a beach while you listen to an audiobook.