Are You Too Young To Understand Literature? - Coffee Wednesday
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- čas přidán 22. 03. 2022
- A discussion on age, maturity, literature, and how to be patient with your education in the humanities.
Other Resources:
My course on writing essays in the humanities: skl.sh/3ow0m2G
My new course on keeping a writer's diary:
skl.sh/3qHJKYg
The Scrapbook Project (Insights on creativity, art, reading):
rcwaldun.com/
My playlist on getting more out of books: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bGlO...
My playlist on Storytelling:
/ watch
v=LiQltdrm698&list=PLAyKE2GAVBOJreusJxK0bBErWBzXY5IKz
My collaborative novel about Melbourne: There's A Tale To This City:
rcwaldun.com/tale
My short story collection Passing Tales: rcwaldun.com/publication
My Instagram page: / r.c.waldun
I appreciate the talk about child prodigies and how people really seem obsessed with the whole idea of them. I believe it's a problem in academia in general. It's why people who were considered *gifted* in school from a young age tend to be very stressed out later on in life. Because the adults around them end up pressuring them- either intentionally or not -to stay ahead of the class in whatever subject(s) they're good at and/or enjoy and, thus, burn out or worse.
This is so true. I wanted to be a nobody when I was a teenager.
it's interesting to see you talk about this, where 21 is your current, "mature" standpoint, and I'm only a few years older but I'm also aware that at 21 I was a baby that had no idea about life. And in a few years, I fully expect I'll look at myself in my 20s and be like "wow what a baby". I don't think this sort of thing ever stops. Our perspective will always be changing, be it expanding or shrinking because of our experiences and age, but it will be different.
There are age differences between an adult and a kid, just like there are biological differences between them kids when on puberty vs when they have just started out, so it's not at all like that which you have described. It's not relative at all and their are humps in the road sure, but there are also platforms, which, if crossed, you never return to again: a baby eagle cannot be a baby unable to fly all its life and when started it never forgoes the function of flying, i.e it can never unlearn that.
Best wishes,
Yousef
I think it has a lot to do with the different stages of life that you're in. I'm 23 and just about to graduate from university. Right now, I'm looking forward at what the next stage in my life is going to look like and I feel very young and immature. But looking back at how little I understood just 2 years ago I realize that I have matured at some level since then.
@@linneaclay Hey, congrats on getting through uni! I find university is a very humbling experience, where you become very aware of how little you actually know. And the stuff after it seems like it has to be even more daunting, but good news, it doesn't have to be. It's just different, but in some ways better, too. Just take it one step at a time, you got this (:
Absolutely! It's happened to me, too
I read "Metamorphosis" by Kafka when i was eight years old. At that time i used to swallow story after story without thinking twice, but that tale was one of the few that came back to me often. I was sure there was something i didn't quite catch, that there was a different intent besides a scary story about turning into a bug.
And i was right. I read it later on and i recognized the message and it's purpose with an ease that was even insulting to the text.
But my understanding wasn't dim when i was young, it was just that, young. I had nothing to hold onto, i had no parameters, no preconceived intellectual notions. It was a story about turning into a bug, and i appreciated it.
Every time you read a text it turns into something else. Pretending actual comprehension is something i find pretty naïve. There's always something clicking and turning somewhere, a cog changing its place.
As one grows older The Apparatus grows with you and its able to serve more functions, but that doesn't mean it was missing parts before.
Now, of course that from an academic stand point and by mere logic, the older you are the more technical understanding you'll have of literature and language cause you would've actually spent time acquiring concrete knowledge on the subject. But we all know that.
My professor once told me "your love for reading shouldn't stop you from living and experiencing life" and I still follow his advice to this day. There's so much to read, I know I'll never be able to read it all so I just take my time when I'm reading a good book. It's the bad one's I finish in a day or two 🤣
It's already a given that one won't completely 'understand' a book due to their lack of life experience. I always assume that, when I'm reading a book, that, at my young age, I won't completely understand the book in the same way that an older person would. However, that doesn't mean that I can't read a book simply because it's 'above me'. That's the benefit of re-reading, after all -- I can re-read that same book after having some life experience.
Btw I think it’s fun to think about how this video is a slight contradiction to your other video, “How To Stop Taking Bad Advice From People” where you discuss about how growing old doesn’t necessarily mean that one has accumulated wisdom or maturity. There’s something deeper than just being older and having more experiences.
Yeah! but the combination of accumulating life experiences and reflection, is the key to wisdom... IMO ;)
I'm 57 so definitely too young to understand literature.
Books will mean different things to us at different times in life. Some books will become more important to us with time, and others will shift or, in some cases, will entirely lose the meaning they once had as we move into new stages of life.
I don't believe there's such a thing as being too young for literature. Books will impact us in different ways at different times in our life, and that's only natural. It doesn't necessarily make our later readings better or more valuable to us than our first reading.
Alberto Manguel has some wonderful thoughts on reading and rereading in his "A Reading Diary" and "Packing My Library."
I agree with you. But, as a philosophy student, i think that sometimes you have to sprint and go through books on a superficial level, even when you know that you are not prepared to read it. That's one of the problems of studying philosophy. Its hard to compare its content with experience since its so abstract. And the books are so complex that a fast reading of a fragment of the book is just not enough.
Thoughts on starting literature around 35! 🤘🏻
Go for it
I agree to some extent. With age come life experiences except in some extra ordinary circumstances because mostly it's more time you live more experiences you gain. But that doesn't mean we can't read some piece of literature because we are 'too young', we might get a new perspective from the same book years later but that doesn't make the first reading useless or less important. Whatever our brain could comprehend at the 'young' stage would help as well. I mean we can't make a 12 year old read Crime and Punishment because that would probably be totally useless but in 20s we can get open to pretty much everything
This is a subject about which I have been thinking lately. Sometimes one reads a book and doesn't enjoy it but then, after some time (reading, learning, understanding), gives it another opportunity and loves it. It happened to me more than once. You may not be ready because you don't have enough literary maturity to read that. Literary maturity=knowing AND understanding the whole context (historical, artistic, literary, social, etc.) of the book plus the ability to see the key points of all that. Nobody is born with any of these abilities, and building them takes a long, long time, patience and dedication. Also, each person has their own rhythm so try not to push yourselves. The aim is not getting there asap, but enjoy the ride and learn
Thank you for sharing this growth mindset. At the present moment, it’s more convenient to think that our thoughts and beliefs are free from error. Only when enough time passes by do we realize that we were naive and inexperienced. For example, I thought I understood how the world operates when I was 15. Six years later, I find my 15 year old self to be rather foolish and ignorant. Likewise, future me will think that my present self is less intelligent and immature. Might sound pessimistic to some degree, but I think this is a never ending process and it’s actually what keeps me open-minded to learning :)
thank you for covering all my favourite topics on coffee wednesday
Hey! So, i'm 17 now and i really get, and agree with what you're saying. Specially because my father (almost 45 now) reads a lot, and the difference in what both of us can absorb in a text, poem, or even a bigger book is clear. But... i have a counterpoint. Like, i know that I'm still really young, and I too know that I'm far away from being like my father. Even though, i think that i evolved a lot. I read books since my 8, 9 y (and i love it since then). With 14, i decide to read more "complex" books, at that age my idea was to read more "grown-up books". And, even if most of this books were obviously not for my age, i think that the experience i got from they were what made me (plus what you've said) be able to, little by little, understand better the books and what the writers wanted to say. I don't know if i was clear, and I'm probably gonna regret this comment in a few months or years. But that is my though about this in the moment, I'm really open to counter-opinions for what I've said.😄
Couldn’t agree more because I had the same experience. I remember trying to read “Of Human Bondage” by W. Somerset Maugham when I was young but couldn’t get passed 100 pages. But after 10 years sitting on the shelf and I picked it up again, spending more than 2 months reading it…ended up loving it! Now whenever I don’t understand a book, I’ll just let it sit there and wait…. 😅
Frankenstein just keeps on giving. There are some really good lectures on it. I try to read it every 18 months or so and I always get another layer from it.
I agree that there's a specific time to read a specific book. But also, I think that the experience to understand the book can be also found in the book itself -- you read it now, you understand it in a different way than "intended", then later in life you revisit it and combine the times in your life you've read the book. This can also offer a specific viewpoint not just of the book, but of who you were and who you are, as well. But yes, completely agree that reading books for the sake of having finished them can be a waste of time. I used to read for the quantity rather than quality, but am trying to really change that and choose the books I care for and leaving some others -- mostly classics and philosophy that I know are not right for me currently -- for some later time. Great video!
There is so much power in re-reading literature. So much of our enjoyment of a particular book depends on our life experiences and what we are going through at the time of reading it. The books we enjoy are a reflection of ourselves - our beliefs, experiences, mindsets. Thus whilst the book doesn't change, our perception of it does as we change. Isn't that beautiful?
E.G. Jane Austen - I recently read Persuasion and I liked it but did not feel as connected to it as Pride and Prejudice or Emma. But that is because I have never experienced turning someone down due to external pressures or being bittersweetly reunited with a past lover at an older age. It is considered one of her best books. I can see how people who have in some way experienced what the main protagonist does would (and do) love it deeply.
And sometimes we are just not knowing enough to understand a book. I tried to read classical dystopian fiction such as 1984 when I was a teenager (due to my love of Hunger Games and other YA dystopian and Muse's album based on it), but I did not understand it at all. It's not necessarily that you need to be a certain age, but you typically need more knowledge when it comes to classical fiction and more experience in reading books in general, to be able to read older writing styles and understand the contexts of the books - though some require more knowledge than others.
I think also some books get worse as you get older too. As a teenager I loved Clockwork Orange and Catcher in the Rye because I related to them in some way. But I think if I went back now they would probably seem more like social commentaries than how I perceived them at first read.
This is how I felt with reading 'Pride and Prejudice' for the second time. Once at a book sale, my young "teenage" sister wanted to buy 'The House of Seven Gables.' I smiled and said she should wait; when I read it earlier that year, it was so very dense with philosophical and life ideas that at times it was a hard read. I expect when I read it again when I'm older, it will age like fine wine.
It's a paradoxical type of thing : we must have some life experiences before we get our hands on some books but on the other hand it's the books which help us experience life better. So it's better to read (good) books in our younger days and keep coming to those pages time to time until the last day. 😊
Thank you for making this video, I really needed to hear this. I always overwhelm myself with all the books I still haven't read, because I'm constantly reminded of all the books that exist and how I'll never be able to read them all. This video made me realise it's okay to wait with certain books until later in life.
depends on how much life experience you have. you can become the wise hermit archetype as early as your 20s.
go through life and integrate the lessons.
This was a very interesting video! It helped me realize that I don't need to try to understand everything about philosophy and literature right now. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Gj, bruvv, looking forward to your next video: you're very insightful and have helped me out a lot in my life too as well as the others here who similarly feel your compassion.
Thank you
Love your videos, thanks
i think i agree coz i just remember when i read Old Goriot by Balzac, it made me like so indulged with it many days after reading it, that was a year after my father's death, it might have been different if i encountered the book before that tragic period of my life
thank you for this video
Deep, not wide. By only reading wide one can never read deep, but reading deeply necessarily encompasses breadth. And to your point, I've gone on long fasts -- even years -- from reading and at other times binges, a book a day. But always I engage with the best, for they have depth and breadth. Non multa, sed multum: little but well. I've settled on a few authors only, most of them before the 18th century.
And it is "life experience" that opened these books to me, that I had first read thirty years ago. It's all in Plato, but he's made me antiphilosopher since it leads to a dead end, literally opportune self-slaughter for Socrates. At the end of the zetetic questioning (and deconstructiveness), the foundation is alogon. The answers are to be found elsewhere: knowledge through John of the Cross' path of nada is of a sort only dreamed of and dismissed in the Phaedo.
I feel like I'm constantly reevaluating the person I was just a few years ago. I tried to read Proust in 2019 (after I heard about it from one of your videos!) and I liked what I read in the first 50 pages, but I inevitably put it down and I don't remember much from it. But I picked it back up recently and I'm a bit surprised at how much I am getting out of it now. I understand it!
All this to say that, I was stupid at 15, I was stupid at 20, and now I'm 26, and I feel even more stupid. So I don't think anybody is "too young" for literature, but there are definitely some books that should not be approached until you are much older. It's even more important though, for us to revisit pieces of art that challenged us at a younger age. Maybe then, we'll even get more out of it.
You're only young if your brain hasn't developed enough to engage with literature. And when it does, the entirety of the literary world is yours to explore.
Engage with literature? To be able to read and understand the meaning of the words? To understand the most surface level themes? To be able to analyze and take in anything you can from the book? Engage is a bit vague.
"reading should supplement your life,
but it shouldn't become your life"
- Robin Waldun
our worldview will always change by experiences . I believe that becaus me at the age of 16 is a different person from now
bettter i should say ;about the fictons stories..... well you are right i tend to read philosophie books now it has a huge impact on my mind
Although the things you say are just ideas, for me it is a complete life experience
Am I too young to understand literature? Considering how my understandment of Coelho vanished when I grew up (I literally remember how I understood and enjoyed all the symbolics when I was a kid), it's an obvious answer. I left Alchemist unfinished, because of my parents' disapproval, and now I'm sad about it.
Picture of emo RC or it didn’t happen lol
Stephan King and other popular authors are great just to start out with .
I hate to agree with what you are saying. I really want to get into jung but i always find myself not understanding anything, even tho watching yt videos on him are really interesting haha.
A better title would be "are you too inexperienced to understand literature?"
fax
A quuestion that has been bugging me; are you born a philospher, or can you be educated in to being one? (if that makes sense).
Most likely the latter. People can "be born" with some aptitude and innate qualities related to being a philosopher, like introspection and critical thinking but those innate talents and qualities don't really matter if they're not nurtured by a good Philosophy education. Introspection and critical thinking can also be taught as well. The education itself can be formal or informal and self-taught, as long as one doesn't fall into the trap of falling into an echo chamber through self-teaching. Like with every field and subject, it takes time and effort to become a professional at something and Philosophy isn't any different in that regard.
@@ajiththomas2465 Good answer, thank you.
@@localitystories
You're welcome.
Interesting question. I hv met older people who hv not been educated highly and some who are streetwise, who seem to me quite philosophical. On the other hand, there are the book worm type who cant think independently. Worse are those who hv been religiously indoctrinated. I think it's to be a balance. Wisdom comes with age.
Have you read any Thomas Pynchon?
I remember about a year ago, in a video Robin mentioned that he was reading Gravity's Rainbow. Whether he actually finished it or not is unknown.
@@ajiththomas2465 Thanks
@@lewbasnight6283
You're welcome.
I bet you were older at 14 than I was at 25.
I tried to read Gunter Grass at 21 and I couldn't do it very well.
I'm 69 and I still can't get past page 1 of Gravity's Rainbow.
I am quite young and love literature; the classics - Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Homer etc. With the reading of these texts I tend to espouse new beliefs, but in watching your video, I have begun to wonder if my mind represents these texts accurately; am I misrepresenting these artworks? Am I espousing beliefs contrary to what was intended by the authors? In this misrepresentation, are they appearing to me as less than art? I by no means consider myself a 'prodigy', or anything of the type, but watching your video made me wonder just how much I am missing - and maybe how much more I will find in these works in the future. Just an interesting thought I wanted to share.
I wouldn’t sweat it too much. Part of the joy of reading is being excited by the things you read. Talking about the texts with others is another way to understand them. Homer, Marcus Aurelius are all open to interpretation, they are not facts that can be proven or disproved. Some books are not worth the effort, some books you could spend a lifetime making new discoveries; but isn’t reading about experiences and philosophy only supposed to help you understand the world around you and live a better life? Is there even a definite correct interpretation or understanding of a book? Probably not. The bible has been read and interpreted for hundreds of years by thousands of people and still there is no real consensus on what it means.
Does age bring maturity of understanding? Debatable.
Can hetero guys wear tote bags?
Thank you