I received an e-mail from a friend (?) suggesting that if I felt the book Ethics For The New Millennium by the Dalai Lama was a "tough read," then possibly I had been spending too much time reading Dick & Jane primers.
Fair comment; however, I feel the need to clarify something. (Isn't it amazing? I can read for hours about the virtues of humanism and then KABOOM! Someone questions my intellect and I get all puffy and huffy, and stomp around the room. But I'm better now, so here goes.)
A better way of expressing myself would have been to establish my definition of "tough read" right up front. But I didn't, so let's give it another go.
The Father Time Shuffle
Some books can be unbelievably complex and hard to read. That's one of my definitions of a tough read. My other definition sounds like the complete opposite. Some books can incredibly clear and easy to read, but damn tough to comprehend in one long session. A good analogy would be the challenge of trying to eat a pound of really good chocolate fudge in one setting. Somewhere around the 4 oz. point, it stops tasting as good as it did in the beginning. At the 6 oz. point my body starts to rebel. It tells me that if I eat any more, it will cause me no end of physiological issues, including dizziness, nausea, profuse sweating, and shortness of breath.
Such is the challenge of reading a really great, clearly written treatise on some aspect of philosophy, (minus the physical symptoms unless getting a migraine counts.) Taken in small chunks, it can be digested. For me, to try to read something like that in one or two marathon sessions is not a positive experience.
As always, other opinions are always encouraged, and treated with respect. Now it's time for a snack.
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