Perhaps I am not the greatest writer you will ever read, and instead of reading me, you would probably rather be doing something else. But even with the time constraints in medical school, I have been doing my best to improve my writing, and to make sure I write more consistently. To be able to write well, you see, you need to be willing to read widely. Widely means diverse genres, something that, sincerely speaking, I chide a little; which perhaps is to be expected because as Alan Jacobs has it in his book,The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, quoting W. H. Auden:
Auden doesn’t want us to scorn “trash” but rather to enjoy more and more of what is good. However, he also realizes that nobody’s taste will ever be all-embracing: therefore he has one category for the recognizably good work that you hope someday to enjoy, but also this: “I can see this is good but I don’t like it.” Just that, because no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to enjoy everything that is worthy of praise. Nor should you try too hard to achieve such catholicity. In a book review Auden once commented, “No critic will ever amount to much who does not start with strong personal preferences and end by transcending them so that he can see the good in works which are not really his ‘dish.’ A narrow taste is a bad taste, but a catholic taste which is not arrived at through a process of self-conquest is no taste at all.”
For Auden, the robust reader does not begin with complete openness but rather with “strong personal preferences”: we do well to be rather narrow in our likes at the outset, but to recognize such narrowness as a trait that in the long term becomes a vice.
(The emphasis is mine)
In Bird by Bird, an important writer's handbook, Anne Lammot reminds us that we learn to write well so that we can read well, and reading pays greater dividends. I would love to be able to write well so that I can read well, and then be able to write well. You see how it works?
I am appealing to your good will for financial support. With your support you will make it easier for me to write more. If you can, kindly consider buying me a coffee in order(hopefully) to keep me awake and to keep me going. Thank you so much.