{"id":890,"date":"2026-06-26T17:12:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T17:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=890"},"modified":"2026-06-26T17:12:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T17:12:48","slug":"a-writer-learns-how-to-read-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commercialrelocationpros.com\/?p=890","title":{"rendered":"A Writer Learns How to Read Again"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube <\/em><\/p>\n

Do you wish you could read more books? You\u2019re not alone. These days, fewer people are reading for pleasure, and even those who do tend to struggle with distractions. Is this a literacy crisis, or has our attention just been warped? And what can we do?<\/p>\n

Read more A White House Makeover, Brought to You by Struggling National Parks<\/a><\/p>\n

In this episode of Galaxy Brain<\/em>, John Paul Brammer joins Charlie Warzel to talk about how he managed to ditch the allure of his screens and social media and rewild his attention. This is a conversation about how to reignite your curiosity, what deep reading does to your mind, and how anyone can learn to love to read again.<\/p>\n

The following is a transcript of the episode:<\/em><\/p>\n

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John Paul Brammer:<\/strong> I was just such a dire case of \u201cbrain being addled by social media\u201d that I knew on a sort of intuition level that I needed to find a way to make myself hungry for books. Because I knew that if I wasn\u2019t hungry for them, it was simply not gonna happen. It\u2019s like giving yourself homework as an adult. As long as the option is there to not do it, you probably just won\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Charlie Warzel:<\/strong> I\u2019m Charlie Warzel, and this is Galaxy Brain<\/em>, a show where today we\u2019re going to talk about rewilding our attention and maybe, just maybe, getting a jump start on the summer reading lists.<\/p>\n

Outside of hosting this podcast, I\u2019m a writer. And as a writer, I\u2019ve often harbored a pretty deep insecurity about my reading habits. Great writers, at least according to the stereotypes, are supposed to be excellent readers. And it\u2019s not just about amassing knowledge, but also picking up on style and form. To read is to be in conversation with someone else\u2019s ideas\u2014somebody else\u2019s words end up rattling around in your mind. And it is this intimate, almost sacred, world-expanding process. Being a voracious reader doesn\u2019t guarantee that you\u2019ll be a fantastic writer, but it\u2019s no coincidence that many of the greats confess to getting lost in the written words of others.<\/p>\n

But unfortunately, it\u2019s hard to get lost in a book these days. It\u2019s not that I\u2019m not reading. Like many of you, I am positively drowning in text\u2014in emails, and Slack messages, articles, links, posts, all of it hurled at me in a pull-to-refresh feed. I am reading constantly for my job. But it is not deep reading that slows the mind, the kind that gives this meditative sense of calm. It\u2019s this harried, tab-switching, attentionally jarring stuff. The kind that leaves you feeling vaguely ill when you look up from your phone or screen.<\/p>\n

Maybe you feel this way, too. Maybe you read all the time when you were younger, before the noise and the interruptions of our devices, and you want to get back to it. Or maybe you\u2019ve grown up with phones and algorithmic social media being ever present, and you\u2019ve never really developed that strong reading muscle.<\/p>\n

Whatever camp you fall into, I think there\u2019s this broader sensation these days that something is being lost. Some have described it as a literacy crisis, and others as an attentional one. But educators are writing these concerned op-eds about kids who struggle to focus on shorter reading assignments and with comprehension.<\/p>\n

A recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education<\/em> put it bluntly: \u201cMy Students Can\u2019t Read.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there\u2019s data that seems to suggest this isn\u2019t all anecdotal. In September, the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that 12th-grade reading scores were at the lowest level recorded since the assessment began in 1992. According to that assessment, 32 percent of 12th graders now score below the assessment\u2019s basic reading level.<\/p>\n

Amidst all of this, I recently stumbled on an essay by John Paul Brammer: a writer and a Substacker whose insightful and humorous work I\u2019ve been reading for years via my frenetic feeds. It was titled: \u201cHow I Learned to Read Way, Way More.\u201d<\/p>\n

In it, he lays out how, in this moment of constant distraction, he was able to rekindle his childhood love of reading\u2014and the ways in which it had a profound effect on his mind, his writing, even his relationship to reality. It\u2019s also an essay about attention and curiosity, and how those two things work together in pretty unexpected ways.<\/p>\n

So I figured Brammer is the perfect person to talk to about how we can guide our attention with intent. How to be a curious person. And the ways that curiosity may just be an antidote to the cynicism and despair that are too often the lingua franca of the internet. What happens when we let our curiosity drive and turn away from the feeds? John Paul Brammer joins me to discuss it all.<\/p>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> John Paul, welcome to Galaxy Brain<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> Charlie, thank you for having me.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> So I wanna start with you just telling me about your relationship with books and with reading. How did your reading life start, and how has that experience shifted over time?<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> Yeah, one thing that\u2019s important to know about me, I think, is that my mom was my ninth-grade English teacher. So when I was a freshman in high school, I had my mom in first-period English.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> That\u2019s an interesting experience. Say more about that.<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> One time we were late to her class, and she had to like drive me there because I was in this very rural middle school where things weren\u2019t going so great for me. And so, because she was a teacher at this much bigger school, she negotiated it out with the school board: I\u2019ll just take my son every morning; I\u2019ll take him<\/em>. The bus didn\u2019t go out to our house because we were out in the country, you know? So my mom always drove me there. But one day we were late to first period together, because she was doing her hair, and then she counted me tardy. And I was like, Why would you do that?<\/em> And she\u2019s like, I can\u2019t treat you any differently.<\/em> I mean, I wouldn\u2019t accept that excuse from any of my other students<\/em>. So it counted against me. So that\u2019s what having my mom as my English teacher was like.<\/p>\n

But she was huge on reading, huge on literature. The policy in my household was: If you want a book, you can have it. We\u2019ll find a way to get it to you.<\/em> So yeah\u2014literature had a big premium in my house, for sure.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> What did you grow up reading? Like, what did you love?<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> I was such a freak. And so much of my journey as an adult has been trying to like get back to that freak that I was when I was such a bookworm as a kid. Because I was reading everything. I would just go into the library and just pick something for no reason, and start reading it. So, you know, I read the stuff like\u2014I had Goosebumps<\/em>, I had Hatchet<\/em>. You know, things that a lot of people read when they were kids. But I was reading stuff I had no business reading at a young age. So I remember there was this one book called A Door Into Ocean<\/em>, and I can\u2019t pronounce the name of the author [Joan Slonczewski]. I think she\u2019s Polish, but I could be mistaken. It\u2019s an ecofeminist sci-fi book, and it\u2019s about a planet of lesbian catfish called the Sharers, and they get invaded by this like race of men, and the men are trying to oppress the lesbian catfish people. And I was in like the fourth grade, I think, in Catholic school, and I was like, Man, books are amazing.<\/em> I read it front to back. I know what actually happened in it.<\/p>\n

But I was just grabby, you know: anything in front of me. My mom had a copy of a David Sederis book in my hands by the time I was in sixth grade. So, you know, it\u2019s like I was on game, I would say.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> You write: \u201cGetting on a reading jag has dramatically improved the quality of my life.\u201d Tell me more about that. What does reading do to your mind when you\u2019re locked in? Like, what is the quality of that attention that you feel?<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> Yeah, so I\u2019ve been reading a lot of Simone Weil, who is a French philosopher. Really kooky lady. if you ever read her, you\u2019re in for a real time, because she kinda like\u2014you know how weebs<\/em> are like white people who love Japan? She was like that, but for Catholics\u2014where she just loved Catholicism without ever actually becoming a Catholic. And so she writes a lot about God, but she approaches God through this sort of neoplatonist slash; like, she arrives there through Plato, kind of. And so there\u2019s a lot of richness in the way she talks about religion. And it\u2019s almost like when she\u2019s talking about certain things, even if you\u2019re a secular person like myself, you\u2019re able to get a lot out of it. And so she writes a lot about attention, and she writes a lot about prayer. And she means attention<\/em> in, I think, a different way than the way I talk about it in my essay.<\/p>\n

However, when I saw her writing about curiosity, it really got me thinking, because I only came across her as the result of this big reading journey that I was on. So I only started really reading books, seriously reading books, like a little over a year ago. Which\u2014as a writer, that might sound really crazy. But you know, I, like most people, was averaging just a few books a year. To me, I say in the essay, I\u2019m a little embarrassed. It feels like I was walking around without having taken a shower for most of my life, like without reading.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> Being a writer without reading a lot now strikes me as kind of crazy. But all that\u2019s to say: I got really into the way [Weil] was talking about attention. And it really did strike me that attention is this sort of like\u2014I don\u2019t want to say buzzword<\/em>, but we\u2019re always talking about it, right? Because we live on the internet; we\u2019re on social media all the time. A lot of us are addicted to tech platforms. And tech platforms kind of beget a certain confusion, a certain fog, a certain way of seeing the world and consuming media. And it is reading of a kind, right? Like you, especially on text-based platforms, text is constantly being lasered into your brain. Even if you\u2019re on TikTok or these video-based platforms, information is just constantly on its way through your eyeballs. And so when I talk about how reading books can benefit a person, I think that does have a necessary backdrop of \u201cbecause we\u2019re all on our phones and our laptops all the time, and it is kind of scrambling our brains in a certain way.\u201d And so I don\u2019t necessarily believe that reading books is going to automatically fix everything in your life or anything. I do think, however, it is kind of a panacea for a lot of the ills and a lot of the struggles that we\u2019ve brought into our life through these tech platforms.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> When you are locked into reading\u2014because I think this is a fundamental part to ground everything else\u2014what is that quality of attention? How does your brain feel when you\u2019re doing that?<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> Yeah, so in the essay I sort of distinguish between two major types of attention. There\u2019s the muscular attention, which is the kind that, you know, you remember from school. Like when you can\u2019t focus, but you\u2019re really pushing yourself to. And also, I\u2019m not saying in the essay this is an unimportant kind; I think this is a very important kind of attention. It is important to be disciplined enough and to apply effort to be able to pay attention to something even when you don\u2019t necessarily want to.<\/p>\n

However, we are sort of always trying to use that form of attention to enter what I call \u201ca state of pure attention.\u201d Which, you know\u2014a lot of us, you might recognize that from just when you are no longer really super conscious of yourself. You\u2019re sort of immersed; you\u2019re enthralled. You are really deep inside: be it a piece of content, a piece of media, a book. It\u2019s just coming naturally to you. You\u2019re not stumbling across, like, Oh, I need to go back and read that paragraph because my mind was wandering. Oh, I don\u2019t know what that word means. There was a hiccup.<\/em> You are just on the track. You are locked in. And I sort of make the case that this is the version of attention that has been commodified, and it is the version of attention that we really like. Because there is a depersonalized, anesthetic quality to it. It sort of does take us out of the world a little bit and places us somewhere else.<\/p>\n

So if you\u2019re reading a really good book, a really informational book\u2014and I\u2019ve experienced this a lot in my reading career now, where like I\u2019m reading one of those philosophical texts I always thought that I wasn\u2019t smart enough to read. And suddenly something about these words are just\u2014they\u2019re opening up, and I\u2019m in them. And I am really taking in someone\u2019s thoughts, their point of view. I\u2019m really connecting what they\u2019re saying to other things about the world, to the structure of reality. That\u2019s such a beautiful, sacred thing to experience. And yet\u2014that state of pure attention, it\u2019s like we do sort of fetishize it in a way, because we think of it as so rare. We think of it as like, Oh, it\u2019s so hard, because I can\u2019t focus, because I can\u2019t pay attention. I can\u2019t get there.<\/em> I sort of argue that we\u2019re in states of pure attention all the time. You know, I had to reach for like spiritual language in that essay; I called it prayer<\/em>. So that\u2019s my case for what pure attention is.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> You talk about this shell, basically, that comes up: the wall of the muscular attention. People feel it so much now with the, Okay, I\u2019m not reading as much. I\u2019ve gotta try to read one of the great books, or a piece of nonfiction that everyone\u2019s talking about. <\/em>And they can\u2019t crack it. And they feel lesser than. I\u2019ve felt this very acutely.<\/p>\n

But what is\u2014in your mind\u2014what is the beginnings of cracking that shell? What is the trick that you have come across in this reading experiment?<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> Yeah, I mean it\u2019s a horrible tragedy to me that there\u2019s so many people who want to read\u2014and have the time to, even\u2014but just can\u2019t bring themselves to do it. There\u2019s something in the way there. And there was for me too. You know, as a writer, I was always wanting to read more. And the more I thought about: Well, how do I overcome this barrier? What is this barrier? Like, I don\u2019t even know what to name it.<\/em> And you know, pop culture, it\u2019s sort of been named as just \u201cthe attention crisis,\u201d right? Like, the narrative is sort of: Well, you are too distracted by everything else.<\/em><\/p>\n

And there\u2019s also this sort of implicit argument\u2014sometimes it\u2019s explicit\u2014that in doing so, attention is sort of like this muscle that\u2019s atrophying. Like: It is actually degrading; it is getting worse over time, and so you are sick in a way. It\u2019s a deeply pathological argument, where it\u2019s like: You are getting worse. You are actually getting worse at paying attention to things.<\/em> And I was afraid of that, and I wanted to wrestle with that in a real way and not just try to like comfort myself about it. So I started looking into ways, like: Okay, well; I know for a fact that reading more books makes me feel better. I feel better when I\u2019m not on social media and I\u2019m reading a book. I wonder why that is.<\/em><\/p>\n

And so I knew that I knew on a sort of intuition level that I needed to find a way to make myself hungry for books. Because I knew that if I wasn\u2019t hungry for them, it was simply not gonna happen. It\u2019s like giving yourself homework as an adult, you know?<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> Like, as long as the option is there to not do it, you probably just won\u2019t do it. And so what I learned in the essay, I name it curiosity<\/em>. Which is like\u2014it really is just a genuine appetite to know. And when I started thinking about curiosity, I started thinking, you know, in a very different way about attention as well. Because I found that I\u2019m capable of crazy feats of attention when I\u2019m curious about something. I will spend hours digging into a fight between strangers on the internet if I\u2019m curious. I will find out where they went to school. You know what I mean?<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> Sure.<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> Like, I will dig and dig and dig. And so I thought, Actually, I\u2019ve got quite a few tools in my arsenal when it comes to attention. I wonder how I can harness them to do something more productive than what I\u2019m currently putting them toward.<\/em> And so that\u2019s where the question of appetite came in, which led me to curiosity. Which is like: I call curiosity an \u201cattention multiplier\u201d in the essay, and I sort of compare it to a child. Because it\u2019s very greedy; it\u2019s either like going, going, going,<\/em> or it\u2019s dead asleep. It has no concept of right or wrong. When it wants to taste dirt, it will taste dirt. That child will find a way to get dirt in its mouth, and I think that that\u2019s such a powerful human drive.<\/p>\n

And I knew that there was so much horsepower in it that I just felt like, Okay, there\u2019s gotta be a way to apply this to books.<\/em> And there was; in fact, I realized that I was trying to start in a completely wrong direction with books. I wanted to read the most impressive thing, because I was coming from a place of insecurity. Like being around other writers and thinking, Oh, I haven\u2019t read <\/em>Moby Dick yet.<\/em> You know what I mean?<\/p>\n

It was kinda like that. I want to read the most impressive tome that I can get my hands on, so I can feel like a real writer. <\/em>And that wasn\u2019t me working with appetite or curiosity; that was me working with insecurity. So I had to start with like: No, I\u2019m actually genuinely interested to read this.<\/em> And for me that was, yeah, David Foster Wallace\u2019s nonfiction essays.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> And you know, well: first off, Moby Dick.<\/em> You mentioning that is great, because I had the experience exactly with Moby Dick<\/em>. I am a writer; I haven\u2019t read this<\/em>. And felt this extreme guilt, right? And it was like, it\u2019s a long book. This just feels like that, This is the literature that I need to cram into my brain. I will be a better person once I have gone through this.<\/em> But I also totally approached it like homework, and thought: I have to struggle through whatever this is, and on the other side of it will be a better version of myself. <\/em><\/p>\n

And then I started reading it, and I was like, This is just, like, funny<\/em>. And at times like almost a little like pulpy. And then in the middle of it there\u2019s this weird textbook about whales that\u2019s kind of really interesting, because you\u2019re just like reading a Wikipedia article about whales. And I realized, Oh, this is so much more accessible. It was written to be entertainment.<\/em> And I think that that\u2019s a big part of it too, right? We just psych ourselves out as well on these things, because it\u2019s like the equivalent of running a marathon, right? It\u2019s so hard that you must be a better person at the end of it.<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> Yes. And like now\u2014me having read Moby Dick<\/em>\u2014I can say there was no way that I was gonna read Moby Dick<\/em> a year ago. Sometimes you need to read two books just to read a third one. And like, one book will give you the context that you need to read another one. So I was approaching Moby Dick<\/em> completely blind. I couldn\u2019t place it in a cultural moment; I couldn\u2019t place the language in\u2014like, why was the language like that?<\/em><\/p>\n

And so much of these big novels, some parts of it are just genuinely a response to another literary movement, or a critique of it. Or there\u2019s like a context around it that we just don\u2019t have because it\u2019s so old. But then you read\u2014this is most prominent, I would say, in philosophy, where I thought I was too dumb to understand philosophy. I didn\u2019t know what any of them were talking about. And then you find one philosopher that\u2019s just like\u2014it cracks the door open. You kind of step inside, and you realize that, no\u2014it\u2019s all intelligible. They just are using words that mean something different in a different context. You just need to, like, massage the definitions out a little bit.<\/p>\n

And then\u2014so Nietzsche becomes understandable, because I read someone more legible to me than Nietzsche, is what I\u2019m trying to say.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> What I like about your framework of the curiosity\u2014and thinking about that as the waypoint of attention\u2014is that a lot of people who care about this stuff, you know, they think what we\u2019re going through with smartphones and social media and AI slop and this fractured online environment as an attentional crisis. But you have this line that says, \u201cHere\u2019s some hypothetical good news. Our faculty of attention isn\u2019t shrinking after all. It\u2019s just that our curiosity has changed.\u201d How did you apply this theory\u2014that, you know, \u201ccuriosity is a child\u201d\u2014to the slump? Take me through logistically how this worked.<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> There was like a mystical element of this where I was saved by the fact that I read a paragraph of David Foster Wallace at the right time. You know? Like, it wasn\u2019t like I was truly sitting myself down and being like, Okay, now I will become a reader. I have to, right?<\/em> Something floated across the internet one day, and it was a paragraph. And it was David Foster Wallace\u2019s \u201cHow Tracy Austin Broke My Heart.\u201d She\u2019s a tennis player. But it is just an essay about: Why are superstar athletes always putting out memoirs that are so bad? Like, what is it about an athlete\u2019s memoir that\u2019s so bad?<\/em><\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> Yes. I love this essay.<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> It\u2019s so good, right? And that essay is a lot about, you know, storytelling, narrative, types of intelligence, types of genius. You know, he sort of makes the case that, well, athletes are in possession of a different kind of genius than a writer is. And so he\u2019s talking about different ways of the brain applying itself. And I thought it was just magical.<\/p>\n

As someone who\u2019s interested in writing, you know, I was much more of a doer than I was, like, a reader, when it comes to the written word at that point in time. And I was sitting here watching this man demystify something that I didn\u2019t even know was a mystery. And him explaining. Because I was like, Yeah, why are they so bad? <\/em>And he had a way of using words that just made it feel like\u2014not only did I understand why, but it felt like I was just inside his brain with him. I felt like I was thinking with him. And as someone who writes, I was like, I want my writing to have that quality: where someone can read it, and it unlocks something in their brain as well. <\/em>Like, that\u2019s such a magical experience, right?<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> And so you kind of like daisy-chained that, right? Did that lead you to just\u2014you\u2019re basically just cracking the spine on a ton of different books in that genre to see, then, what hits?<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> Yeah. I mean, I would just say I had an incorrect view of literature. I don\u2019t know how else to put it. Like, before I went down this path, I don\u2019t think I knew, I didn\u2019t fully understand genre. Or like writing in general, or what an author\u2019s obligation really was. You know, I was writing a lot, because writing happened to be the thing that, like when I was a kid, I started winning essay contests. And so I started getting awards, and I started being able to travel for the first time. And I was like, Wow, okay; writing is really cool. I\u2019m just gonna keep writing<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And so a lot of my career, up to that point, was just getting new bylines and publishing where I could, and making a living out of it. And you know, I didn\u2019t think of it as much more than that. And then literature, once I started actually reading more widely, and I started reading people who were doing crazy stuff with literature. I mean, I mentioned in the essay Clarice Lispector\u2014this Brazilian author whose writing style is just utterly unique. And it\u2019s like: This is a woman in the throes of either madness or genius<\/em>, and it was like watching someone just perform magic in front of me. And it was like\u2014Oh my God, this is scary. But it\u2019s thrilling.<\/em> And it\u2019s like she didn\u2019t care if she was intelligible in certain passages, you know?<\/p>\n

And I didn\u2019t know language could do that. I always thought that language\u2014you know, coming from a journalistic background, I was very keen on very clear messages. Making sure everything was very put in its right order. Etc., etc. And yeah, I was introduced to this concept of language being even more than that. And so once I had that in my heart, I sort of saw it as like: I need to read everything I can get my hands on<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Now that I see that little spark of something in everything I read, I just become addicted to finding it in every book that I read. It\u2019s almost like genre doesn\u2019t matter anymore. And so, in that way, I did get back to my childhood self, where I was just like reading everything, you know? And yeah\u2014it\u2019s a very special time in my life, for sure.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> Now that you\u2019re into this\u2014I\u2019m just gonna keep calling it a reading jag<\/em>\u2014are you able instead, like, do you not have to put things down? Because your brain is a little more formatted for \u201cNo, I don\u2019t have to struggle with any of this, really, in the sense I\u2019m alive to it all.\u201d What, logistically, are you doing with individual books?<\/p>\n

Read more Darwin\u2019s Story Isn\u2019t as Simple as It Seems<\/a><\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> Yeah, so at first I almost had to mimic the feeling of \u201cscreen\u201d with books. You know, where it was just like clicking around from tab to tab, losing interest, going over here, going over there. Because you know, I was just such a dire case of \u201cbrain being addled by social media.\u201d And so I kinda knew, like: I know this is what you need right now; I\u2019m just gonna work with it. <\/em>So when I got bored, I wouldn\u2019t say, like, Oh, we\u2019re done reading this; we\u2019re gonna put it away forever. Just for now, put it over here, and start this other one that you just got.<\/em><\/p>\n

Like, I was almost working with that feeling of when you get something new in the mail and you\u2019re just so excited to open it. And you just wanna get with it, like, right away and just start tearing it open. I had to use that as an accelerant at first, you know? Because the new new new<\/em> of it all was still so hardwired into my brain that I almost didn\u2019t know of any other way. And it took a while for me to get hooked enough, in a long enough book, to sort of start teaching myself, like, This is what it\u2019s like to read a book<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Which sounds kinda funny, but that\u2019s literally what it was like. It was like, Okay, see, you\u2019re doing it; you\u2019re doing it. <\/em>It\u2019s like you\u2019re riding a bike\u2014like you\u2019re going, you haven\u2019t fallen over yet, you\u2019re going, you\u2019re going farther than you did before.<\/p>\n

And you know, now I find it pretty easy to motor through something if need be. But I also find it easier to abandon something. Like I said, in the past, I had to tell myself: We\u2019re not junking this; we\u2019re gonna eventually finish it. We\u2019re just gonna go do something else.<\/em> Now I kinda know when something holds something for me, or it doesn\u2019t. And I\u2019m more confident in being like, Okay, this isn\u2019t for me<\/em>. And of course, like when I\u2019m on the verge of doing that, I always confer with Reddit. Because sometimes people will be like, \u201cNo, no, no; that last fourth of the book goes crazy.\u201d And sometimes they\u2019re right. But, yeah.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> Earlier I asked you to describe your relationship to reading. But what\u2019s been your relationship to the other side of this? The technology, the internet, social media? What\u2019s that relationship been like for you?<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> I mean, Twitter ate me alive. It really did. Like, my brain. Like, \u201cI just gave my brain to Twitter\u201d is the only thing that I can think to say. And on some level, I get why. I wanted to be a writer, kind of nebulously defined back then. I didn\u2019t care what kind of writing I did, which is how I ended up in journalism. And you know, for a college kid in Oklahoma, I didn\u2019t have a lot of open doors for me.<\/p>\n

And there was this technology there that was just a bunch of open doors. Like, I could pester anyone on Twitter. Especially back then\u2014there was this really exciting iconoclasm to Twitter where it was just this really rapid onset democratization of \u201cWe\u2019re all in this same plane of existence together,\u201d and Twitter was being touted as this thing that was gonna topple regimes. And: You\u2019re all gonna be a journalist from now on, because there\u2019s a phone in your pocket, and you can record whatever you want<\/em>. And you know, there was a real flattening of hierarchies going on in that space at the time. And I took full advantage of that. And that was maybe one of the smartest instinctual things I ever did, because that\u2019s how I was able to get my first job. It\u2019s how I was able to start scoring bylines. And so it was very auspicious to me, and back then it was kind of my assigning editor. Like, I would make a tweet, and some editor would DM me being like, \u201cWhat if you wrote about this for us?\u201d<\/p>\n

And that was how I was able to pack in so many bylines at places I\u2019ve always wanted to write at. And so, in a way, I can\u2019t see myself doing it through any other method, you know? But at the same time, I mean \u2026<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> There was a cost.<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> There was a huge cost. There was a huge cost. And the cost only grows in clarity as I get older. And I was anxious all the time, and I was sort of letting Twitter write for me. Like, there were so many things that you know, I won\u2019t say that I didn\u2019t believe them. But it was very easy to respond to certain social pressures when there was this giant town square, and you kinda knew what they disliked and what they liked. And so, certain things that I wanted to write I had to couch a certain way. And I had to, you know, diminish certain things that I wanted to say and magnify other things to appease people. And I think that\u2019s no real way to write. I think that\u2019s not a good way to train yourself This is how we write<\/em>. Because you\u2019re going to write scared.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> And writing is a brave thing. You have to be able to put it out there. And if you\u2019re being timid about it in any way, the good stuff will not visit you that way. And so I know better now. I know why I needed to use it. But yeah\u2014I was just hooked on it. It literally shaped the way I thought, which continues to be scary to me.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> You write, though, that it also seemed to change just the way that you experienced reality, right? You say you experienced it as this kind of series of loud, urgent, disconnected images. And then you wrote something that\u2014as a fellow denizen of the internet during the Twitter heyday\u2014I felt this deep in my bones. I\u2019m gonna quote you to yourself here. You said: \u201cThe powerlessness that chronic social-media use inspires comes from the mediums packed with the absolute present. New, new, new. Show it to me.<\/em> I recall scrolling to the very top of the feed and desperately trying to pull the absolute present towards me with my thumb, needing to know: And then what?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

And what\u2019s interesting to me about that paragraph is that many people frame our attentional issues as a struggle to stay in the present. But you frame it almost in the opposite way. That these tools are trapping us in something that that you call the absolute present<\/em>, which is actually really painful and really extractive. What is it about the absolute present that drains our curiosity, that saps our spirit?<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> So I think that, at any given moment in time, of course, you and I, everyone else, we are subject to the cultural milieu. Whatever\u2019s going on. There\u2019s always horrible things happening; things beyond our control.<\/p>\n

And when you\u2019re constantly glued to the absolute present, you\u2019re witnessing all the things happening. You are a passive observer to the way events are unfolding. You\u2019re a passive observer to history. And to relegate yourself to that inert position so much does, at some level, inspire a certain helplessness in you. Because you know, you see this all the time on Twitter where people are professing this idea of, like, I\u2019m so tired of living through historically unprecedented times<\/em>. Etc., etc. You know?<\/p>\n

And these are comfortable people. These are people who have lots of technology at their disposal; they are living pretty good lives in general. I\u2019m sort of generalizing here, but they feel powerless in the face of I guess what I could only call \u201cthe spirit of the age.\u201d And when you are put in a position where all you can be is a witness, it teaches you that you can\u2019t do anything.<\/p>\n

And with social media, we can get addicted to trying to only know what\u2019s going on right now, because that feels productive. It is like the ghost of being productive. It\u2019s sort of like: Well, as long as I know what\u2019s happening, as long as I\u2019m informed, I\u2019m doing my part. <\/em>But what social media kind of taught me is that being informed only goes so far, and in fact it can start to make you feel like the world is this terrible place.<\/p>\n

Because on social media, what gets privileged is the bad news, obviously. And if you get used to living in that, of course it\u2019s gonna make everything else feel bad. Of course it\u2019s gonna make you feel hopeless. Of course, it\u2019s gonna feel like things will never get better\u2014because the only mode this machine has is \u201cDire,\u201d you know?<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> How is reading in the way that you have, how has it been\u2014maybe antidote<\/em>\u2019s the wrong word, but something like that? An antidote to that; the other side of that. How has it helped you realize, as you alluded to earlier, the fakeness of it?<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> I mean, for one thing, it does take you out of just the kinetic present, which is just constantly exhausting you. It really does feel like\u2014reading a good book, I feel like a really hysterical chihuahua barking and trembling, and then someone picks me up, and then I just go limp. You know?<\/p>\n

Like I\u2019m just calm, and I\u2019m in air jail for a little bit. And when I\u2019m there, and when I can actually feel stillness\u2014I mean every tradition, be it secular or religious, will tell you how beneficial stillness is. Because that\u2019s when good-quality thoughts can reach you, but also sort of be generated. And when there is no stillness\u2014when there\u2019s frantic emotion, when you\u2019re in the riptide of it all, when you\u2019re just flailing around\u2014yeah, you will not arrive at quality thoughts that way. It has no time. You\u2019ve got this dire feeling of necessity guiding you, and so you\u2019re not able to actually contemplate things.<\/p>\n

And so when I\u2019m reading a book\u2014and this is true of books of various quality. It helps when it\u2019s a higher-quality book, and it touches something really higher in you. But I\u2019ve read certain novels that also, for me, just make me contemplate life itself. That contemplate the human condition, that contemplate the way we treat each other, why we fall in love, what it means to be lonely. Like, big questions. And I\u2019m able to sort of rest myself in those questions and arrive at more meaningful conclusions than if it was some little post that was just yelling at me for breathing, you know?<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> You\u2019re right. Drink more water.<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> Yeah.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> How has it changed your writing?<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> Oh, gosh; dramatically. Hugely dramatically. Like, I almost feel like I\u2019m a different writer entirely. Because I feel like now my writing is just strictly the outcome of the reading. And that wasn\u2019t the case before. It really does feel like I was using, not to toot my own horn, but just like raw, brute talent before. I was like, I\u2019m good at voice<\/em>, and that\u2019s all I was doing. I didn\u2019t quite feel reckoned with, if that makes any sense. I didn\u2019t quite feel I was putting a whole lot out there that needed to be reckoned with, because a lot of it was impressing via an impressive combination of words. Which, to me, is a little bit different than what I\u2019m up to now. The way I describe it\u2014I\u2019m writing something about this right now\u2014is I just feel like there\u2019s a \u201cwhy\u201d inside of my writing. And it\u2019s a real beating heart in my writing, and it feels more urgent and alive than it used to.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> You are almost describing, your pre\u2013\u201cdeep reading, deep work\u201d self, almost in the way that people describe a chatbot or an LLM, right? Like, I\u2019m really good at the predictive text. <\/em>And what\u2019s interesting is: We\u2019re in the middle of this huge cultural debate over \u201cWhat is a human for?\u201d Especially when it comes to these things like writing. What\u2019s interesting to me is you\u2019re describing now your work as being imbued with this human through line and spark. That, for you at least, that ineffable quality that gives a density, a weight.<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> And that\u2019s the other thing. I mean, AI also kinda pushed me in this direction. Because the backdrop of all this is that I think social media got worse.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> True.<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> Like, I would have stayed addicted to Twitter probably forever if Elon [Musk] hadn\u2019t walked in there with the sink that one day. And you know that, to me, looked like doomsday. But, in fact, it probably saved my life. Because when he kind of wrecked Twitter, I didn\u2019t quite know what to do with myself. Because that\u2019s where my platform was. And so I got kind of sick of the internet, and it brought me to reading a lot more.<\/p>\n

And one thing about reading a lot more is that it makes you way, way better at being able to discern what is good writing and what has meaning in it. Versus what is slop, and what is just sort of like, I call them \u201clanguage blobs.\u201d And you\u2019re right to say earlier, when you talk about it almost sounds like I\u2019m just describing LLMs before I started reading with my writing.<\/p>\n

Yeah; a lot of it was language blobs. A lot of it was just like\u2014social media had these imperatives about what you should say at all times. And it became very easy to just create the vague shape of what they wanted to hear, using language. And it was always guaranteed to be a hit among certain people, because that\u2019s what they wanted to hear.<\/p>\n

And there is something ChatGPT, LLM about that. Where it\u2019s like, yeah\u2014they want to hear a certain something. I provided it to them. And I know I\u2019ve done that before, which is why I\u2019m so hard on myself. And why I feel I\u2019m kind of right to, even if some things I\u2019ve written, I think, are better than others for sure in my past.<\/p>\n

But I have done that. And having done that, it explains a lot about the threats of AI-generated writing. Because it can do that better than any human ever could. What it can\u2019t do better than a human is what I\u2019m describing, of what I\u2019m doing now. And so I do think it\u2019s important\u2014as readers and as writers\u2014to develop a certain palette. Because that palette is going to protect you from all this fake, empty, low-calorie stuff that looks like it\u2019s high quality.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> Yeah. A phrase that I love, because we\u2019re talking about attention here, is that \u201cattention is sometimes an act, but it\u2019s first an instinct.\u201d And I\u2019m curious how you feel you\u2019re honing that instinct now.<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> I mean, I\u2019ve spent so much money on ThriftBooks. I really have. Like, I can\u2019t believe how much money I\u2019ve spent on ThriftBooks. But it\u2019s almost like I\u2019m using that feeling of getting an Amazon package that people talk about sometimes. You know, when there\u2019s just a package waiting for you at home, and you\u2019re like, Goody<\/em>. You know, I can\u2019t wait to see what that is. <\/em>That\u2019s like the child in me being fed a little bit.<\/p>\n

And in the essay, I talk about curiosity as a child. And I\u2019m really trying to work with this part of me that I know won\u2019t get cynical and old like the rest of me. I make the case that curiosity is this permanently childlike thing. It\u2019s very hard to, in an old curmudgeonly way, be curious about something. It\u2019s almost always got this bright-eyed, jejune sort of quality to it that\u2019s just like, Ooh, what\u2019s that? Tell me more.<\/em><\/p>\n

And it\u2019s a very pure instinct. Learning to work with an itch and learning to work with that appetite, for me, has just been so important. It\u2019s almost like the way my parents treated me when I was a kid, and they let me have any book I wanted. That\u2019s the policy I have for myself now. It\u2019s just like, You want a book, kid; you got it. It\u2019s gonna show up, and you\u2019re gonna read it.<\/em><\/p>\n

And I\u2019m all over the place right now. I\u2019m reading books that have nothing to do with each other. I\u2019m sure I\u2019m really annoying on Instagram, because I\u2019m always posting stories about what I\u2019m reading, and I probably look really pretentious. But it\u2019s working. It\u2019s doing great things for me.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> You can\u2019t argue with results.<\/p>\n

Brammer: <\/strong>You can\u2019t; you can\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> So the backdrop of this conversation is that\u2014by a lot of different measures\u2014we\u2019re approaching some kind of crisis of literacy. And you have, almost constantly, professors writing these op-eds that are the same version of \u201cmy students can\u2019t read\u201d or \u201cstudents can\u2019t read.\u201d You also have some data. In September, the National Assessment of Educational Progress showed that 12th-grade reading scores were at the lowest level recorded since the assessment began in 1992. And, according to that, 32 percent of 12th graders now score below \u201cbasic\u201d in that reading assessment. When you think about that broader trend? Are you concerned? Do you think it\u2019s\u2014what do you make of it all?<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> Yeah. I would say one thing about reading that\u2019s made me less anxious\u2014I used to be quite anxious about these things. Huge societal movements, shifts. I\u2019m kind of a stoic about these things now. Where it\u2019s like what Gandalf says in The Lord of the Rings<\/em>, you know? It\u2019s like: We don\u2019t get to choose what times we\u2019re born in. We have to just work with what we\u2019ve got. <\/em>That\u2019s not what he said, but you know what I mean. Paraphrasing Gandalf here.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> You wouldn\u2019t be the first.<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> And I completely agree with the sentiment. It\u2019s like, this is the world I was born in.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> You were very clear at the beginning of your essay about this. That, you know, this reading experiment that worked for you may not work for everyone. What is your advice for people who are trying to either develop or redevelop this atrophying muscle of curiosity and attention?<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> I do believe that most people have a name or two that\u2019s always floating around them throughout their lives. That there\u2019s some writer out there, and for one reason or another you feel this strange sense of gravity to them. I certainly have. And for one reason or another we sort of over time just think, Yeah, I\u2019ll get to it eventually, I\u2019ll get to it eventually<\/em>. Etc. But I would urge people to answer that name and go out right now. Find a book by them; any book. Don\u2019t think, Oh, I need to understand this book. Oh, this needs to be the book that starts this huge journey for me in literature.<\/em><\/p>\n

You just need to get accustomed to scratching the itch when it shows up. Because it\u2019s a good itch, I think, to wonder: What does this person want with me?<\/em> Because I had quite a few authors after I started reading David Foster Wallace. Other names kept popping up, and I kept wondering, like, Why do I keep seeing this person everywhere?<\/em><\/p>\n

And at first, you know, they\u2019re very vague. Their body of work; I don\u2019t quite understand it.<\/em> And it\u2019s also, as a writer, easy to be intimidated by people like that. Because they\u2019re often very prestigious; they have huge careers behind them. You almost don\u2019t want to confront sometimes what this amazing genius has managed to do with words, because it might make you feel bad. But curiosity just has to overcome those things.<\/p>\n

And even if you\u2019re not a writer, I really do think there is a book out there, or an author out there, that\u2019s calling to you. And you know what it is, and you just need to go grab it.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> I\u2019m curious if you think that it\u2019s just reading that does this. Or is this, what we\u2019re describing, really just a form of a different kind of escapism? And that I mean\u2014is the idea here that reading is this higher thing that we should be trying to achieve for our minds? Or is it really just\u2014we need to get a hobby? That everyone needs to find a hobby that\u2019s distracting them from the din of social media, and all that chaos?<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> While I make the case in this essay that books are one of the better sort of \u2026 how do I say this? Books are one of the better things to place pure attention toward. There are of course other edifying things. You know, artistic endeavors. Even just being involved in your local community. But I also say that I do think books are a privileged medium, because we\u2019re grammatical beings. We talk to ourselves in sentences. The way you talk to yourself\u2014the way you understand yourself, the things you say to yourself\u2014are sentence based. They\u2019re language based. And when you improve your relationship to language, you sort of improve your entire life.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m always gonna advocate for literature in books. But yes, I think that this method could be applied to a lot of wonderful things that aren\u2019t social media.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> I love that. I love the language piece there. Amazing. But also I write for a living, too. So clearly there\u2019s a little bit of my insecurity around all this\u2014sometimes that of course the writers are like, There\u2019s a crisis, and we need to be prioritizing this thing that I do<\/em>. Right? But I also do believe it in my bones.<\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> It\u2019s also worth noting that sometimes reading books has its own madness in it, and its own dangers. Where like Don Quixote<\/em>, for example, is very funny in this way\u2014because it\u2019s about a guy who goes crazy \u2019cause he read too many books. And you have to imagine that maybe that guy was doing the equivalent to scrolling Twitter at the time, you know? So yeah; there\u2019s complications to address, for sure.<\/p>\n

Warzel:<\/strong> I love that. I think that\u2019s a perfect place to end this. John Paul, thank you for coming on. Thank you for walking us through this. And also thank you for talking about this in a way that I think will make everyone feel a little less vulnerable and insecure about this thing that we\u2019re all walking around feeling a little bit of agita or insecurity about. So thank you for coming on Galaxy Brain.<\/em><\/p>\n

Brammer:<\/strong> Thank you so much for having me. It was so much fun.<\/p>\n

[Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Warzel: <\/strong>That\u2019s it for us here. Thank you again to my guest, John Paul Brammer. If you liked what you saw here, new episodes of Galaxy Brain<\/em> drop every Friday. You can subscribe on The Atlantic<\/em>\u2019s YouTube page, or on Apple or Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you want to support this work and the work of my fellow colleagues, you can subscribe to The Atlantic<\/em> at TheAtlantic.com\/Listener. That\u2019s TheAtlantic.com\/Listener. Thanks so much, and I\u2019ll see you on the internet.<\/p>\n

This episode of Galaxy Brain<\/em> was produced by Renee Klahr and engineered by Miguel Carrascal. Our theme is by Rob Smierciak. Hadley Robinson is our senior supervising producer. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic<\/em> audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.<\/p>\n

Read more Photos of the Week: Stone Roofs, Football Fans, Soapbox Racers<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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