Learning to Hate Fiction
đ Story of the Week #23
I can pinpoint the exact moment that I learned to hate reading fiction.
I was six years old and sitting in class, happy as a lamb inhaling the book Iâd picked up.
âOh dear, what was this doing in there? You shouldnât be reading this.â My teacher lifted the book away from me, and told me to chose another.
She either didnât realise it or didnât care, but sheâd broken my heart.
I had already looked through all the other books, and they were all boring.
I respected these other books, especially as theyâd introduced me to the word, âeverybodyâ. It was the biggest, and therefore the best word I knew at the time.
However, the other books followed the same story. There was always a group of children, a magic key, and sometimes a dog.
The book I had picked up was wildly different â it was about weather systems.
It was full of crazy things that left a stain on my memory that remains to this day.
Iâll share a few highlights:
All snowflakes are unique, and theyâre like trees. When a snowflake is born, it tumbles about in its cloud. How many times does it tumble before it falls?
Well, you can find out in the same way you calculate the age of a tree: slice it open, and count the rings.
The number of rings equals the number of tumbles.
Shouldnât every six year old be told this about their favourite type of weather?(1)
Also, clouds, those things that float above our heads and strike awe in children everywhere, have different names.
Cirrus clouds were my favourite back then. Probably because itâs fun to say.
Cirrus.
My primary school teacher was following the rules. Children were meant to read fiction, not non-fiction during story time. The rule baffles me even to this day. Surely we should be reading that which interests us?
The incident marked a turning point for me.
In my eyes, fiction, these made up stories that told me nothing about how the world works, had become the enemy.
After that, I avoided it like Brussels sprouts.
It was stupid in hindsight, though heart-break has a habit of making people do stupid things.
Embittered by the experience, I would live with this handicap for ten years.
It was then that I lost a debate with my Year 11 English teacher.
âWhatâs the point in knowing how to do things, when you donât know whatâs worth doing?â.
She paused.
âNon-fiction will teach you how the world works today, but fiction will help you imagine the world of tomorrowâ.
My efforts to read for leisure started small and grew enormous after that. My gateway books were manga, Japanese comics.
Iâm not sure if thatâs what people âshouldâ read. To my knowledge, mangas donât feature on any âGreat works of literatureâ lists â not even âDeath Noteâ, which is a shame.(2)
However, reading what you love until you love to read was my attitude.
Fiction fed my imagination, and non-fiction helped me realise what I was imagining.
Thatâs something no one tells you when you start your career. Your imagination is important.
Playbooks, templates, and recipes do exist at big companies, but theyâre flawed.
They only help with things that are repeatable. However, a small change can make their recipes redundant, and our circumstances are changing faster than ever nowadays.
One of my managers at Airbnb made this plain when I asked if we had any reference documents for a pilot we were launching.
âNo. What weâre building has never been done before.â
Without recipes, whatâs left? Our judgement to decide the best plan of action, and our ability to execute and adjust.
That is, balancing the possibilities with whatâs possible.
Fiction with non-fiction.
Stay curious,
Jamie
(1) My least favourite type is gusty. It spoils every other type of weather.
(2) âDeath Noteâ was the manga that piqued my interest in Moral Philosophy. The premise is that there is a notebook that will kill a person if you write their name in it. You learn this on the first page, so I trust you donât think Iâve spoiled anything for you, especially as the real thrill comes from the moral speed bumps thrown in along the way. So, whose name would you write?
