We read books for various reasons. New information may not be the only reason why we do so. On the contrary, we often read simply for fun. In any case, it’s nice and this blog is a celebration of every Page to Mind.
Who we are and our reading challenge
There are two of us, A.+L.
L. is interested in a number of different fields and industries, from physics, mathematics and neuroscience, through cryptography, economics, Bitcoin, law and philosophy to technology, IT, horology and literature.
A., on the other hand, likes to read mainly fiction, from classics to Nordic crime fiction to book news and basically everything that catches her attention.
Books have always been very close to us. However, in recent years, and especially during our studies, we haven’t read much. That’s why we decided to rekindle this passion in ourselves. We created a reading challenge for ourselves to encourage each other to read a little. At the end of the year, we always choose one of the books we have read to give to someone else to read in the coming year.
A platform for knowledge
Books represent the best possible intersection for a platform dedicated to knowledge and wisdom.
For hundreds of years, a book has been the ideal form for transmitting information. Its publication costs a certain amount of effort, and therefore it can be expected that the information contained in it will be at least slightly thoughtfully put together.
In today’s era of modern technology, a book, in terms of processing the information contained in it, represents a significant contrast to other ways in which information can be obtained today. Its charm lies mainly in the fact that, due to its nature, it represents a kind of filter for what is really worthless. Although books are not among the fastest media for transmitting information, we still like to reach for them every time we want to learn something new.
The worlds of a Renaissance enthusiast
As already stated above, we founded the Page to Mind platform in an attempt to find a common denominator for all information, knowledge, wisdom and insights from all possible fields.
Ideally, it should be such a heaven for a “Renaissance person”. And this is despite the fact that in today’s world the idea of a person who encompasses all knowledge is somewhat utopian. But it was quite possibly just as utopian before. With the depth of knowledge in all the above areas, it is not within a person’s power to be an expert in everything; that is perhaps not even the goal. However, an enthusiast is. A Renaissance enthusiast.
The contribution of such a Renaissance enthusiast is not in the depth of knowledge, but in the ability to connect individual fields and find connections that may remain hidden to others. Because in the complexity and interconnectedness of today’s world, where the whole can hardly be considered just the sum of its parts, in the sense of Euclidean geometry, the contribution of a Renaissance enthusiast goes beyond the mere sum of the depth of his knowledge in individual areas separately.
However, the enthusiasm to explore new worlds also has meaning in itself. If an expert is a person who knows more and more about less and less things, until he finally knows absolutely everything about absolutely nothing (as Michael Žantovský states in the preface to the second volume of The Second Derivative of Desire by Tomáš Sedláček), then a Renaissance enthusiast is the opposite of such an expert. And that’s a good thing. Let’s discover new worlds together here at #pagetomind.