The greatest habit a human can undertake is the act of READING & WRITING.
Reading begets greater and greater thinking not just in terms of *Content*, such as the learning of words, concepts, ideas, stories — but also *Processing Power.* // Writing does much the same; an avid reader is naturally inclined to become a writer of <or> about stories.
I hesitate to compare Man to the Machine, because you know the whole thing that’s going on in our world right now with the latter starting to replace the former in terms of balance sheet value {if not immaterial x spiritual value}. But it nevertheless true that our brain is like a Central Processing Unit + Storage Drive that runs on patterns and language and the interconnecting of ideas. The more you feed your mind the more amplified your ideals and actions will become as a result.
Every great writer’s mind was filled with greater stories.
Acquire a reading habit and watch your whole way of thinking – and way of life – alter positively in response. It is the realm of mental imagination where all of our most fervent ideas and deepest emotions arise.
Unfortunately, due to falling literacy & education {in the USA} and a targeted effort to downplay, criticize, and defund the humanities, questions now abound in 2026 about whether we ‘want’ or even ‘can’ do our own reading & writing anymore. Why don’t I just A.I. summarize it? / “Get A.I. to write that up, quick, on the double!!”
Reading & Writing are not just necessary life skills, they are the most reliable ways to beautifully augment your communication skills and make yourself clearer in personal and professional life. These acts improve your memory, intelligence, and neurological capacities. These acts reduce your chance of Alzheimer’s as well, increasing the longevity of the human brain in every way.
Reading & Writing is the masterstroke of our consciousness, the source of its origins and continuous development throughout life.
Reading & Writing illuminate our unconsciousness too. One’s brain can only alchemize those crucial inner imaginings with outer material, meaning stories and characters and the creations of creators past and present. One must read to write, and keep doing so recursively & habitually to do either well in the end.
Reading & Writing today, in the midst of so much dumbing down of culture and language, where commercial marketing power is overwhelming primordial storytelling power, is one of the most powerful things you can do. Reading elderly literature will make you realize what really stands the test of time.
Reading makes you smarter, enhances your empathy and creativity, and is overall the best way to learn concepts and experience the imaginal mindscapes of the past and present of fellow human beings.
Writing is somehow simultaneously time traveling, consciousness transfer, and artful telepathy. Writing necessarily activates your compassion; you must stand inside the soles and righteously direct the souls of many others in order to craft effective stories.
Writers can exchange pieces of themselves; readers can experience them.
Language itself is the oldest magick we have.
In sum: Save your brain, read a book! Write one to grow your heart.
Godspeed,
Dylan
P.S. My short article ‘On Reading‘ details some of the scientifically-proven major neurological benefits of reading.
Dylan Orosz 