Let us read—not to impress others, but to impress upon ourselves the weight of being human.
By Abdullah Usman Morai | Sweden
In a World of Speed, Why Pause to Read?
In a time where notifications buzz louder than reflection, and attention spans are short enough to be measured in seconds, one might wonder: why should we still read long novels, dense history books, or ancient philosophical texts?
After all, the future is coded in algorithms, engineered by artificial intelligence, and dominated by digital efficiency. But here’s the truth: without literature, history, and philosophy, we risk becoming efficient machines, but not wiser humans.
While science and technology answer “how,” it is the humanities that help us ask “why.” And in a world increasingly numb to cruelty, addicted to distraction, and uncertain of its direction, asking “why” is not just a luxury—it is a moral necessity.
Literature: The Emotional Archive of Humanity
Literature is not a luxury. It is a moral act. Through storytelling, we enter the lives of others—not just observing their joy or sorrow, but feeling it.
When we read Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, we do not merely understand racism intellectually—we feel its crushing weight through the innocent eyes of Scout and the moral courage of Atticus Finch. In Saadat Hasan Manto’s harrowing tales of Partition, like “Toba Tek Singh”, madness becomes the only logical response to human cruelty.
Fiction awakens moral imagination. It dissolves the illusion of separation between cultures, classes, or countries. A Syrian teenager reading Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner found comfort in the story’s shared anguish. “My pain,” he said, “has a twin in another country.”
Even in times of oppression, literature resists. Why do tyrants ban books before banning guns? Because stories cannot be controlled once they take root in people’s hearts.
Writers like Orhan Pamuk, Elif Shafak, James Baldwin, and Arundhati Roy do not just write stories; they expose fractures in society, gently reminding us of the human cost of political choices. Literature humanizes statistics. It transforms passive readers into active witnesses.
History: The Memory of Civilization
History is not the past. It is the map of how we got here.
In today’s world, history is being erased, distorted, or ignored. Yet, to forget history is to risk repeating its horrors. When we study the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe, we begin to see its early shadows in modern political rhetoric. When we read about colonization, we begin to understand generational trauma and systemic inequality.
The brutality of the Partition of India, the Rwandan genocide, the Holocaust, the Bosnian war, or the apartheid in South Africa—these are not just pages in textbooks. They are blood on the soil. To remember them is not to wallow in pain, but to guard against repetition.
Yet look around today:
- In Palestine, entire generations grow up amid bombings and blockades.
- In Kashmir, voices are silenced under curfews and surveillance.
- In Sudan, Myanmar, and Congo, violence continues in silence.
And the world watches—calm, distracted, scrolling.
What history are we writing now through our silence? Will future generations ask: “How could they let this happen?” in the way we ask about past genocides?
To study history is to refuse amnesia. It is to learn from courage and cruelty alike. It is to recognize that progress is never inevitable, and justice must be preserved with effort, vigilance, and memory.
Philosophy: The Compass of Conscience
Philosophy is not just about abstract questions like “What is truth?” or “Do we exist?” It is about how to live with integrity, how to build a just society, and how to handle ethical dilemmas.
When Socrates said, “An unexamined life is not worth living,” he challenged us to think, not just react. When Immanuel Kant argued for universal moral laws, or when John Stuart Mill defended liberty and individual rights, they were not writing for ivory towers. They were laying the foundations of democracy, justice, and civil rights.
Even today, in the age of AI, climate collapse, and surveillance capitalism, we need philosophers to ask:
- Should machines make moral decisions?
- What is freedom in a digital society?
- How do we balance safety with privacy?
Philosophy helps us resist intellectual laziness. It trains us to question our assumptions, argue without hatred, and seek truth over comfort. In a world echoing with slogans, it teaches us to think in paragraphs.
What Happens When We Ignore These Fields?
A society that abandons the humanities becomes economically efficient but ethically empty.
It produces smart engineers who build algorithms that promote fake news.
It raises CEOs who maximize profit but disregard workers’ dignity.
It nurtures citizens who are informed but indifferent.
History has seen this before: Nazi Germany had brilliant scientists and musicians, yet fell into barbarism. Why? Because moral reasoning collapsed. Because truth became relative. Because humans stopped feeling, thinking, and remembering.
The Current Crisis: A Calm That Should Terrify Us
Right now, the world is witnessing a terrifying calm in the face of horror.
- Children in Gaza are buried beneath rubble, and the world debates “proportionality.”
- Kashmiri families are locked down, censored, and forgotten.
- Refugees float between continents as statistics, not stories.
There is no shortage of pain. There is a shortage of moral imagination—the kind that literature, history, and philosophy cultivate.
By staying silent, by remaining comfortably uninformed, we are writing a history of cowardice. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
How to Cultivate the Habit of Reading (and Thinking)
Where to Start?
- Literature: Begin with short stories or novellas. Try “The Old Man and the Sea” by Hemingway, “Animal Farm” by Orwell, or “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” by Mohsin Hamid.
- History: Read accessible works like “Sapiens” by Yuval Noah Harari or “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn.
- Philosophy: Start with “The Consolations of Philosophy” by Alain de Botton or “Sophie’s World” by Jostein Gaarder.
Choose books that challenge you but don’t paralyze you. Build slowly. Reflect deeply.
How to Know If It’s Credible?
- Look for primary sources in history—letters, diaries, official records—not just opinions.
- Read across ideological lines. If you only read what you agree with, you’re in an echo chamber.
- Check the publisher and author’s background. Peer-reviewed or academic sources are generally more reliable.
- Cultivate skepticism without cynicism. Question, but don’t dismiss without reason.
Why It Matters More Than Ever
We live in a time when AI can write code, generate poetry, and mimic human voices. But no machine can yet feel guilt, love, moral conflict, or hope.
Only humans can weep at injustice, learn from the past, and argue for what is right. If we do not train those muscles, they will atrophy.
A culture that forgets its stories, suppresses its memory, and silences its conscience will not survive. Or worse—it may survive, but become something monstrous.
Conclusion: The Slow Fire That Saves Us
The humanities are not fast. They are not viral. They are not efficient.
But they are essential.
Reading literature makes us feel. Reading history makes us remember. Reading philosophy makes us question.
Together, they train the heart, mind, and soul to resist cruelty, to uphold truth, and to imagine a better world.
In a burning house, the person who stops to carry out a book may seem foolish.
But if that book holds memory, meaning, or a map to freedom, then perhaps that person is the only one who truly understands what’s at stake.
Let us read—not to escape the world, but to change it.
Let us read—not to impress others, but to impress upon ourselves the weight of being human.
Let us read, while we still can.
“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… The man who never reads lives only one.” ― George R.R. Martin
Read: Unmasking High-Functioning Depression
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Abdullah Soomro, penname Abdullah Usman Morai, hailing from Moro town of Sindh, province of Pakistan, is based in Stockholm Sweden. Currently he is working as Groundwater Engineer in Stockholm Sweden. He did BE (Agriculture) from Sindh Agriculture University Tando Jam and MSc water systems technology from KTH Stockholm Sweden as well as MSc Management from Stockholm University. Beside this he also did masters in journalism and economics from Shah Abdul Latif University Khairpur Mirs, Sindh. He is author of a travelogue book named ‘Musafatoon’. His second book is in process. He writes articles from time to
