The word books is similar to the word humans,
it is a very general label.

Nobody seriously says I don't like humans,
likewise, no one should ever say I don't like books.

Those are silly things to say,
in fact they are meaningless statements.

There is one more, shall we say, similarity,
between the word book and human.

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Let us go back to our childhood,
and revise a group of world.

The word spirit, soul, or even ghost,
was explained to us as this thing that floats in the air.

But actually, the truth, is that,
spirits live in books.

A book worth keeping,
is a kind of eternity.

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You see this isn't just about you reading books,
but you reading your way towards becoming a writer.

So that you spirit will be captured in your works,
and depending on how well you write either titillate or frighten.

It is very important that you become a writer,
hundreds of years from now as we live long and take to space and beyond.

Little known books will become a rare delight,
and even before such fancy people deserve to feel you.

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In this way it is true that we can communicate with spirits,
because we can reconstruct a version of the author and learn from them.

The spirits that books keep,
represent a precious one of a kind. intellectual inheritance.

More than just befriending the author and asking,
"What would she do in this situation."

Books allow us to inherit the authors, and sometimes their characters' lifetimes,
they help us enter the plateau that they climbed and now rest upon.

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Inheriting lifetimes is a precious talent of ours,
one that we should make frequent use of.

Because we can then avoid problems,
that the books describe.

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In a funny book written by a recovering alcoholic,
I noticed this terrifying passage written in context of drinking alcohol - something I always stay away from.

"If you hang around the barbershop long enough,
you'll eventually get a haircut."

Here J. Maarten Troost delivers a lesson that we don't have to learn,
that we can just inherit, and completely avoid.

There are many more mistakes that we can avoid in a similar fashion,
I think this is by far the most powerful thing about books.

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This is what it means to inherit from a book,
to hear about the struggle, or challenge, and take into our heart.

To know where the tragedies are,
and go all the way around, and have that, much, more, life, to experience.

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Asking how many books do you have to read is OK, but a bit silly,
in a way you only ever really love the top 10.

If you were lucky enough to instantly discover your ten books,
then the answer is you only need ten of them.

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If it is wisdom that you are after, if you care about being powerful!,
then 10,000 is guaranteed to light a fire like non other.

But realistically, you need to have a good time reading a book,
you need wintry walks in the park, lazy days at a lake-or-ocean beach.

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There is still one more important thing you should know about books,
a book in its paper form is the most primitive version.

The best kind of book,
is a book cheerfully narrated by its author.

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Here you will discover a great pleasure,
in re-listening and re-learning from books.

This is a great power, as each time you re-listen you grow in wisdom,
and each time you become wiser you understand more of the book.

Here my favorite example is a group of books,
written and sometimes read by Bill Bryson.

I enjoy re-listening A Short History of Nearly Everything the most,
there is always litter something I forgot, and something I end up understanding a bit more.

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Do not worry too much about the great challenge of writing your own books,
it happens automatically when you have something interesting to say.

You just sit down and write,
later you divide it all up into separate books.

And perhaps pen a few more,
once you ask yourself if people of the future will be able to reconstruct your spirit in full.

Take to great adventures,
and don't get lost in mistakes that Humanity keeps propagating.

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Part of the reason why writing is so important,
is helping the future generations start understanding mistakes from where you left off.

Climate, Poverty, Loss of Species, Pollution,
are not things that are meant to crush you.

Those are the things,
that you have to help the younger generation understand.

They need to understand it all, so that they don't have to start by breaking their way out of that mess,
and thus be forced to repeat the road you already traveled.

But rather, start far above, where they can comprehend is mechanics,
and introduce systems of prevention that will help humanity, increase its pace of advancement.