Reading Cannot Be Replaced, Here's Why

Welcome to the 1-2-Read letter! Every issue will give you a practical idea and two journal prompts to transform how you read & think. If you're enjoying these letters, consider upgrading to receive an extra letter on Mondays. Your contributions keep the lights on around here, and thank you so much for your support!

(1) The Idea: Reading as a circuit breaker

I love catching a random movie on Saturday nights as a nice escape from the week. And every time, without fail, I would find myself in that post-movie daze, wandering to my car with a smile on my face.

This is one of the functions of art: it gives our lives a circuit-breaker. They also clear away the mental cache built up throughout the week. But then, after a few weeks of going to the cinema consistently, I noticed something else.

Now, I’m not a psychologist, but what I’m about to describe seems to be a common experience. When you consume too much media from a screen (big or small), the daze you get from a so-called circuit break always comes with a bit of that empty sadness. This happens when

·      I go to a cinema more than once a week

·      I binge a long series on Netflix

·      I accidentally roam into a doomscroll session

Is it because I dread that return to reality? Not really, I’m pretty happy with my life. Is it because the movie made me sad? No, I watch a lot of comedy during these circuit-breaks. Then, it occurred to me that the feeling wasn’t sadness per se, but a crash from being overstimulated.

We’re living in a time where we’ve taken that empty sadness for granted, thinking of the crash as a tax for indulging in entertainment. However, what happened last weekend changed my mind.

I was sitting in the cinema bar last Saturday, waiting for One Battle After Another to start playing. I drank some Heaps Normal, scribbled in my notebook and *ding*! I got a reply from Facebook Marketplace about a pair of Audio Technica speakers I wanted for Christmas. “I’m free tonight if you want to pick it up.”

Shit. I thought. The seller was about an hour away from me, so it was a choice between Leo or a night in, tinkering with a new stereo system. I drained my can of Heaps Normal, stormed to my car and rushed onto the freeway.

When I got home, my room had turned into a warzone of cables, record sleeves and dusty shelves. When 11 pm hit, I looked at my new stereo system with neat cables and smiled: all I want for Christmas is YOU! Then I sank into my chair, put on Relaxin’ With The Miles Davis Quintet and started reading. I looked up again: it was 2 am in the morning.

Now, this is when I noticed that, unlike watching a movie or a show on Netflix, there was no crash after reading for hours on end. In fact, my brain felt rested, and I couldn’t wait to go to sleep and start my Sunday shenanigans.

To test this theory, I brought a book to a doctor’s appointment on Monday. My doctor had a few patients before me, so I waited for close to an hour. Again, no crash. My racing thoughts had calmed, and the rest of the day felt restful. So, here’s a takeaway from my weekend experiment: books are a great source of entertainment without the crash.

Sometimes, we like to overcomplicate the question: why should we read? Well, let this experiment be a convincing reason for getting back into reading in 2026: it is one of the only forms of entertainment that doesn’t give us a crash, no matter how long we do it for. In fact, Dr Ruth Simmons from this video here even compared reading to a forced meditation.

“I know a lot of people today that like to do things on the fly”, she said, “you can’t read a book on the fly… Thank goodness.”

And thank goodness, indeed. Reading might just be one of the last respites for us to untangle our thinking, expand our worlds and, most importantly, feel at ease with ourselves if it’s just for an hour every day.

(2) The prompts

1: Examine your relationship with entertainment: are they bringing in the pleasure you expected? Do you feel that crash after being overstimulated, and have you taken that feeling for granted? Describe how you feel after you’ve indulged in entertainment in a journal.

2: Experiment with a 20-minute reading routine every morning before anything else. This can be over a morning coffee or during your commute. Stop at 20 minutes sharp and note down how you feel. Are you finally getting the feeling that you’ve been craving from entertainment? Does your mind feel clearer? Write them down in a journal at the end of the week.