Editor’s Note: This excerpt is from
one of my earlier works. We have gotten to the part the blog where some private
study would be involved; lessons sharing would be done using multiple media
format. It is beneficial to read, listen and watch whatever medium we share to
deepen lessons learned. This post shares the importance of books, and shows the
link with self-development and creative potential. Besides printed books, there
are now several other various forms through which knowledge is transmitted
nowadays; get hold of all these, whichever you prefer, and study.
Books, Self-Development
& Creative Potential
By Kenneth Nwabudike Okafor
Of
all the prime creativity-activators that I know, none stimulate like good
books.
Reading
is a one-way route out of ignorance and education the shortest route to
intellectual achievement. Nothing excites the power of imagination as books
can.
William
Ellery Channing wrote that, “It is chiefly through books that we enjoy intercourse
with superior minds. In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their
most precious thoughts, and pour their souls to us. God be thanked for books.
They are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the
spiritual life of ages past. Books are true levellers. They give to all who
will faithfully use them, the society, the spiritual presence of the best and
greatest of our race.”
One
of the indisputable weaknesses of our country’s educational system is not
merely tumbling standards and the ‘poor economy’, but a grievous dearth of
relevant texts to FILL thirsty minds. The reading of books lighted a bright
light inside my darkened personal space. I would have loved to give you six or
seven steps to more effective reading, but none of them, as far as I am aware,
can arouse desire in you to read or do anything remotely connected to study.
You MUST decide to read books, and then go ahead to read!
One
definite step you must however take is to eschew the inflexibility and restrictions
of studying as in studying for academic work. You should appreciate the fundamental
value of books outside of any formal or informal institutions. An acute
awareness of defined realities could help you achieve an obligatory
repositioning, change your general perception about books, and, hopefully,
deepen your activity of study. Personally, I found the following counsel
helpful: 1) I do not read to intellectualize my discovery; 2) I do not read to
pass school examinations only; and 3) I do not read to feed my presuppositions.
Rather, I read to deepen my understanding and thus my learning.
Books
should hold a prime of place in your bid to fulfil your creative vitality.
You
must sell this incentive to yourself!
There
are those who do poorly at this, as in their minds, books have become somewhat stigmatized,
being associated with the often traumatic experiences suffered at school. With
the difficult task of schooling finally over, these people bend over backwards
in order to severe themselves by psychological decapitation from the
‘constraints’ of books.
Books are the lynchpin of self-development and realization of creative potential. You must discover that
education should free your mind to discover the hidden, and transport yourself
from the brink of oblivion.
One of the first tomes I recall tackling was my
father’s dog-eared dictionary. After I decided to become a writer, I proceeded
to devour every literary work in sight. Articles and expositions in national
newspapers, writing in general, about writing events, and about successful
writers followed next. Finally, when I could afford them, I delved into
acquiring books on writing.
There are those who have built great achievements
upon the foundations of books and rigorous study.
Benjamin
Franklin was an American statesman and scientist as well as a writer, who
disillusioned with British rule, helped draft the American Declaration of
Independence amongst three other founding documents, all of which he signed.
This man gained, nevertheless, a worldwide reputation for his scientific work.
It was recorded that “…his experiments with electricity led him to invent the
lightning rod, devise the theory of positive and negative charges, name the
battery and become one of his century’s foremost scientists. As for his Poor Richard’s Almanac adages, they made
him not only a best-selling author but also the first American media mogul:
printer, editor, publisher, newspaper franchiser, and consolidator and
controller of the first great distribution network—the postal service. His
inventions included the Franklin stove and the bifocal lens.” Benjamin Franklin
has been described as a savant of the twentieth century.
Wilbur and Orville Wright have been equally
described as self-taught engineers. I think there is something paradoxical in
the fact that it would take bicycle repairers to invent the airplane. I mean
the bicycle is a very earth-bound contraption that its rider has to pedal
frantically to achieve meaningful momentum but the brothers were no ordinary
bicycle repairers; they had their hearts filled with a vision sky high.
About the brothers, a writer wrote, “The Wright
Brothers had been fascinated by the idea of flight from an early age. In 1878,
their father, a bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, gave
them a flying toy made of cork and bamboo. It had a paper body and was powered
by rubber bands. The young boys soon broke the fragile toy, but the memory of
its faltering flight across their living room stayed with them. By the
mid-1890s, Wilbur was reading every book and paper he could find on the still
earth-bound science of human flight…. While the brothers’ bicycle business paid
the bills, it was Wilbur’s abiding dream of building a full-size flying machine
that inspired their work.”
Wilbur Wright read until, together with his
brother, he laid hold to the key to human flight! Between 1899 and 1902, the
Wright Brothers built and tested kites and gliders. By 1903, they piloted the
first manned, powered flights of heavier-than-air machine. By 1906, they
established patents on airplane-control system and by 1908, they landed the
contract to manufacture planes for the US Army.
When
the history of aviation is recalled in full, other men whose names would be
mentioned include Ferdinand Adolf August Heinrich Graf von Zeppelin, a testy
count, and his mammoth dirigible; Clément Agnès Ader and his Eole (a flying
machine based on his close observation of birds, flying insects and bats. Using
chloroformed mice as bait, Ader was reported to catch eagles, cage them and
then, while they were still woozy with the drug, gently move their wings and
study their articulation.); and Alberto Santos-Dumont, heir to a Brazilian
coffee fortune and his engine-powered airships.
There
are several other obscure achievers, too, who read and studied themselves to
greatness!
Get hold of a fitting book
and read. I tell you there is great adventure inside covers and between
every printed page.
Feel free to explore whole new worlds from within the pages
of instructive volumes. You must discover books for yourself; do not take anybody’s word for it!
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