[Notes #2] What Reading Means to Me — The Process of "Embodied Reading" and "Reconstruction"
Reading is, at its core, an act that demands a great deal of energy. Unlike videos or television that flow passively toward you, a story cannot move a single step forward unless you move your eyes deliberately, letter by letter, and conjure images within your mind. Yet it is precisely because reading requires this energy that I believe what you gain from it is equally great.
In an age that clamors for time-efficiency and streamlining, my way of reading may run entirely counter to that current. But it is this very "inefficient process" that transforms a book from a mere bundle of information into wisdom that becomes part of your flesh and blood.
Here, I'd like to share the reading practices I have made my own.
1. Embodied Reading (Shindoku): Sharing in the Resonance of Pain
What I treasure most is what I call shindoku — embodied reading. Rather than simply following the words, I project my own life—my past scars and present joys—onto the inner worlds of the characters.
Feeling their emotions as if they were my own, sometimes with a vividness that borders on pain. By immersing myself until the boundary between myself and the work grows blurred, I feel as though I can touch the truth the author has woven beneath the surface of their words.
2. Extensive Reading and Rereading: Multiple Perspectives and the Ripening of Time
I never confine myself to a single genre, and I always read several books in parallel (taidoku — extensive reading). What I mean by this is not simply getting through a large quantity, but allowing multiple perspectives to coexist within me at once. When books with different viewpoints begin to mingle inside you, unexpected chemical reactions occur.
I also never skip the practice of rereading — returning to a book years after the first encounter. A passage that once escaped my understanding may, now that I have lived more, resonate with a deep nod of recognition. Or an entirely different emotion may take root in me than before. Rereading is also the luxury of holding a conversation with your past self, through the medium of a book.
3. Tuning: Aligning with the Author’s Breath
Experience has taught me that without an internal compass — a question or hypothesis of why I am reading this book — reading tends to lose its substance. It is essential to carry a question that has welled up from within yourself before stepping into the labyrinth that is a book.
At the same time, I undertake the work of tuning my own channel to the author's voice — acclimatizing myself, for instance, to their particular rhythm and the idiosyncrasies of their chosen vocabulary. It feels like more than simply "reading between the lines"; it is the sensation of stepping, of my own accord, into the world they have meticulously constructed. Unless I align myself with the author's breath, I believe it is impossible to correctly receive the message they truly wished to convey.
4. Writing as the Completion of Reading
And for me, reading finds its completion in writing. I put into words what I felt from reading, and record it in a blog or notebook. Through that process, I am able to trace the subtle shifts within myself and gaps in understanding that I hadn't even noticed in myself.
To read back, with my own eyes, the words I have spun. Through this act of rumination, understanding reaches down into ever deeper strata.
Closing: Reading as a Refinement of Everyday Life
If efficient intake of information were all that mattered, a summarization service would probably suffice. But the time spent wrestling with a book, projecting yourself into it, and struggling to find the words — that time quietly and surely refines something within us.
What book have you shared your "energy" with lately?
Thank you for reading.
I hope this proves useful to some of you.
See you in the next article.
Comments
Post a Comment