We have seen people slip into reading when their job is done. They have no other chores left in their lives, but reading. They want to amass knowledge and become adepts. Knowledge has two fangles -substance and entertainment. Our avid readers are after substance.
But, heaping up abundance of knowledge can lead to communication overload. Yogis, Vedic pundits, astrologers, scientists, authors and other hardcore readers suffer from communication overload.
They live in their own lands of respective knowledge. They are likely to become moody and tend to not observe social mores. A few try to distort them.
Crammed knowledge cannot lead one into the plane of practical wisdom. It is inevitable to tackle problems we face in everyday life. Knowledgeable person might behave strange, act violently or excitedly when he requires to manifest pragmatic intelligence. Knowledge can send home a bad mood father or a moody husband.
Honing knowledge by reading is an ever widening process. This makes men change their attitude towards society and social issues. They also may not keep a stable mind to earn their living.
There can often be changes in their complacency. They presume that their profile does not satisfy what is generally required. They seldom satisfy on a particular thing because their ideas are changing and moving to new pastures. Hence they do not settle in life and become preys of humiliations from their contemporaries.
There are youth who read fiction and try to practice what they find in some of the pages. Their enquiries in life get blunted and forget their goals. These men loose consistency in life and introspect about it at their fifties. They live in reveries and figments. They lack practical as well as timely wisdom because running a life is a hard pragmatic affair. There must be a balanced approach to knowledge and wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to identify the most important factors in a problem and act accordingly. This can be attained by contemplation, interpersonal living, reading, cultural interaction, travel, religion, and a host of other factors. If there is a poise between the two, there is nothing for penitence.
Life has become complex from all fields.
One should pool wisdom in profuse to survive. Readership surveys of government of India endorse that reading habit has not diminished considerably. Now a days it has become selective. It is always proper that if one reads for a good living.
(The author is a retired college lecturer)