How politically incorrect would it be for me to start my first ever post as a blogger with some sort of controversy? How daring do I feel right now? Should I, dare I? Oh what the heck! If we all had the same opinion on everything, things would rapidly become unbelievably boring, and soon some of us would be redundant… As a friend of mine puts it: “What’s Life without Risk?” (To which another friend always replies: “What’s Risk without Life…”)
So here goes… (drum roll please – I like a bit of drama when I’m about to make a hugely revealing disclosure about myself…)
I have tried several times (5 times to be precise) to read The Power Of Now, in vain. I tried, God knows I tried, to read it; and to like it, but woe is me, I failed miserably.
So here it is, for all to see – my dismal failure at reading a book that changes lives. Not only does it changes lives, but it is apparently so inspiring that people completely turned their life around on account of this book. This, my friends, is one powerful book. Alas, what would I know about it, because I haven’t read it!
For a long time, I tried to hide this shortcoming in me. People would come in to the bookstore and ask my opinion on the book. What was I to tell them? That it was good or that it wasn’t? That I didn’t have time to read it or that I just couldn’t stay awake long enough to get through it?
And what would this awful flaw say about me? That I lack depth and intelligence? That my grasp of the English language is less than adequate? That my future is doomed, all because I haven’t been able to harness The Power of Now?
I reflected quite a bit about my inability to read this book. And this brought me back to Daniel Pennac, who in his essay “Comme un Roman” (Like A Novel) talks about “The 10 Inalienable Rights of the Reader”. These Rights have eased the guilt that countless readers have acquired by long-standing beliefs about books and the act of reading… According to Pennac, we have:
1. The right to not read
2. The right to skip pages
3. The right to not finish a book
4. The right to re-read
5. The right to read anything
6. The right to "Bovary-ism," a textually-transmitted disease
7. The right to read anywhere
8. The right to glean ("grappiller")
9. The right to read out-loud, and
10. The right to be silent
Once one is acquainted with these rights, Freedom and Inner Peace cannot fail to follow. Imagine, being let off the hook the moment you decide that somehow you do not connect with a book you’re reading and you have PERMISSION to stop reading! Not only that, but you also have permission to read the last page first, and permission to skip pages or a whole chapter even…
For me, it means that I no longer feel inadequate when I find myself finishing a paragraph and wondering what the hell I just read. I no longer feel the need to condemn a book I haven’t finished by saying it’s bad or boring – I just acknowledge that I didn’t connect with it, that maybe, somehow, I am not meant to read it, or that the timing isn’t right, and I trust that the right book will come my way. And it does…
So there you go, I said it: I didn’t read The Power of Now… But I’ve stopped beating myself up for it!
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