Reading

There is much hand-wringing in the science of science about how to encourage more high-risk high-reward science. But to take the position of Mos Def for a moment, science isn’t a giant who lives in the mountains – it is ourselves – so instead of asking “how is science doing?”, we could ask “how am I doing?” In that spirit we can push ourselves to take bigger risks. To me, it seems that one of the best high-risk high-reward moves that we can make at any given time is to slow down and read. When we’re reading, we’re not producing anything at all – very risky for a scientific career! Instead, we’re planting the seeds that we hope will yield fruits, possibly in the distant future.

We would like to think that we can read and be productive at the same time. A more responsible advisor would probably encourage you to balance your reading with your writing, so that you can guarantee sufficient publications to make progress on your degree or career. But that wouldn’t be very high-risk, would it? I think of the story of the rabbi (name) who said goodbye to his family every time he went to pray, because for him to give himself fully to the prayer, he needed to release all of his expectations about what might happen in his communication with the divine.

Why should we take reading any less seriously? Some days I feel like getting rid of all of the books that I have lying around. In a way, it seems disrespectful, to be invoking the presence of these works constantly, and never reading them. Wouldn’t it be more in the spirit of the rabbi (who can teach us a thing or two about high-risk high-reward) to only have a single book in the house at a time? And when we see it, we insist upon reading it, because it is a matter of engagement with material that could change our lives. Rilke.

Reading

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