the first question

what’s worth reading?

Disclaimer: The below article is only in the context of non-fiction writings.

Top 10 books you must read, this is one phrase I am sure all of you would have come across at least once in your attempt to find the perfect read. I’ll not be able to give you a shortlist, but the purpose of this short article is to look at this very question of “worth” in a fine more detail.

Books, blogs, articles, stories, and any other form of written testament contain immense emotions, beliefs, and thoughts of millions of people who might have left the land of blue oceans but their writings seem to keep them alive in time. It’s not just about them being alive with ideas, it’s more of them making us aware of the version of the world they happened to be a part of, the version which made them human.

But do these writings hold significance even in our version, do they still explain why we should or should not practice actions, do they still qualify as ideas worth consuming, do they still need to be read and understood, do they still need to be debated, these are some of the many questions I haven’t really been able to get my mind on.

I do not have one universal answer to the above questions simply because I haven’t been fortunate enough to consume all ideas ever written, but while figuring out the nuance of these questions I came across this majorly accepted belief which says that some ideas stood the test of time and hence “worth reading” while the rest were either refuted or were just left untouched and unread. The interesting part of this idea is the concept of “stood the test of time” and this is because this concept in itself is dynamic and hence ideas refuted today might possibly turn out to be the realities of tomorrow.

This entire argument makes the task of picking the worthy read even more difficult because now I don’t know whether the world-famous ideas which are recommended by almost all individuals of significant stature will even hold in times to come and the only concept which comes to me as a rescue is “hit and trial” or to put it in other words “read and decide” but this again comes with its own set of problems.

With this, I pass this question to all the readers of this article. Thank you.