Find the Thread of Love and Beauty in It All

A poem:

This mental hum is one of the constants of your life.

A craving to know more,

gleaning information, inspiration, insights,

unraveling the mysteries.

The kind of mind that finds so many things interesting;

the world is exciting precisely because of

its infinite variety and complexity.

You will always be drawn to the process of learning.

The process.

Journey from ignorance to competence.

Alone with your books and your thoughts,

you continually seek wisdom,

reflect or wonder — about theories, ideas, concepts,

fascinated with the intangible and abstract aspects of life.

You link ideas, events, people.

We are all connected,

part of something larger,

not isolated from one another

or from the earth and the life on it.

You recognize how people are alike and how they are different,

intrigued by the unique qualities of each person,

you can draw out the best in each,

build productive teams.

You are a bridge builder for people of different cultures.

A collection of words and phrases, at least, if not properly a poem. They are not my words, but they are (I like to think) about me. More on them later.

Working at a library is a fascinating experience. For many reasons. One is that you are always getting asked new and different questions. Things you've never been asked before. Sometimes you learn new things in the process of answering, other times you get to share information you've never had a chance to share before.

I just had the latter experience. We received the following inquiry through our website:

My name is [redacted]. I am a senior at [local] Academy, and I am currently working on my senior cumulative research project called Capstone. For my Capstone project, I am researching "Why Has Reading Become a Lost Art?". I am specifically researching teens and digital media use, and how that contributes to the loss of reading. I am looking to interview someone who may know information on this, and would be willing to be interviewed through video chat, a meeting in person, email, or a phone call! If you could help me at all, that would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for your time!

Those of us in Teen Services discussed, and I volunteered to respond. I did so with a lengthy email, which has been praised as notable by colleagues:

[redacted],

Hello. Some of us at the library have been tossing around your request for input on your capstone project and I've jumped in to respond. I was a high school librarian for four years before joining [my] Library 20 years ago, and your topic is one that has always intrigued me. I'm going to offer you a lot of rambling thoughts, and if you want to respond with follow-up questions in any areas please do.

The first thing that jumps out at me from your request is your topic: "Why Has Reading Become a Lost Art?" That thesis rests upon a conclusion that reading has, in fact, become a lost art, and upon seeing it I immediately want to ask, "Has it?" Some people would disagree, arguing that reading has not become a lost art. So I'm curious to see if you've researched that aspect already. Have you already looked into statistics about the reading habits of adults and teens and found that they are reading less than they used to? Because I think you need to establish right off the bat, with support, that reading habits have changed. Only after showing support for that should you turn to the "Why."

If I can, I would suggest you take a look at the Pew Research Center website (pewresearch.org/) for some of that support. They have sections with statistics related to Teens & Youth and to Libraries. Taking a quick look at the most recent reports in those categories, without even narrowing down for your topic, I see:

• Teens, Social Media and Technology 2022
• Among many U.S. children, reading for fun has become less common, federal data shows
• Who doesn’t read books in America?

I'm sure with a little work you can find even more information there that explicitly delves into your topic. You can also find many articles with commentary on Pew reports, such as Older People Are Worse Than Young People at Telling Fact From Opinion.

I'm also copying [also redacted] in this message. She is the youth and teen Collections Specialist for [my] Library, meaning she orders all of our books and materials and can get you circulation reports about what gets checked out from our library and how those numbers have changed over time.

Other thoughts your topic brings to mind for me: If people are reading less, does that mean they are less capable as readers? Is reading a more challenging task for the average person now than it used to be because we practice the skill less? Do we read less because we're less capable or simply because we prefer to engage information and stories by other means? How does consuming information and stories by video or audio or pictures or video games compare to doing so by reading? Does it impact the brain?

I'm going to offer some of my thoughts in response to some of those questions. These are informed by many sources I've encountered over the years (some books, some not). Don't rely on me as an authoritative source though; these are meant to spur your thinking and potentially give you different directions to take your research, but you'll need to find your own sources that confirm or dispute my thoughts.

How you read does, in fact, impact your brain. Everything you do, think, and feel strengthens particular neural pathways in the brain. Just like muscles you use grow stronger and muscles you neglect grow weaker, your brain gets stronger and weaker in different areas depending on what you're doing. So long, sustained sessions of reading through books grows the parts of your brain related to long, sustained thought processes. If you don't read books, your brain is not as good at doing that kind of thinking. People who get all of their information by reading articles and other shorter sources online train their brains to do a different kind of thinking.

However, that doesn't necessarily mean one kind of thinking is best. There are many types of literacy, and reading is just one of them. Some of the best readers I know can't get through graphic novels because they don't have the visual literacy to process the pictures and feel lost. Learning from reading words and learning by looking at pictures are two different ways of engaging stories and information and use different parts of the brain. The same is true for video, audio, graphic design, and more. People who make movies have their own vocabulary and knowledge about what makes their medium work, as do radio and podcast producers. I would throw in dancers, musicians, painters, poets, and all types of artists. Each is a different way of telling stories, of sharing information, of thinking, and each has its literacy required by the brain to fully process and appreciate.

For a long time our culture has held books and sustained reading in the highest regard. Many would argue that it does something uniquely important for the brain that none of the other literacies provide, and that it shouldn't be lost. Are they right?

I'll share an anecdote from my own experience. In addition to reading books, I love listening to audiobooks. I listen when I drive or hike or mow the lawn—when my body is busy but my brain is bored. I noticed over time that my memories of those books always included what I was physically doing as I heard them, and when I returned to those locations I would spontaneously remember those books. Similarly, when I read books, I remember parts of them in relation to the physical aspects of the book itself—a particular scene, for instance, happened two thirds of the way through, at the top of the page, on the right side of the spread. When researchers have looked at how readers engage with digital reading, on a phone, computer, tablet, or other screen, they have found that the lack of that physical reference points impacts the ability to remember. Memory has a spatial component, and without that physical point in space that the paper pages provide, readers don't remember their reading as well. However, they've also found that there are other ways of reading on devices to aid memory in other ways, things readers can do to replace those missing spatial references. So digital reading can work just was well with some training and practice, but it is different. Even reading the same book in two different ways, one on paper and one on a screen, impacts the brain differently and requires the brain to do different things.

So moving from paper books to social media on screens is a huge jump for the brain. Short pieces of stories and information shared mostly in pictures and videos instead of long, continuous thoughts on pages and pages of paper. Yet, assuming your research backs up your base conclusion that we are in fact choosing online engagement over books, why do we find that preferable? Some would say sheer laziness, but I'm sure the truth is much more complicated than that. Most of us seem to agree we'd rather spend more time engaging in social media and less time with books. Why? What is the appeal? It's a great question, and I'm excited to see how you'll answer it.

I want to finish by sharing a few of the books I've read that have informed my thinking.

Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in A Digital World by Maryanne Wolf - I'm putting this first because I really encourage you to follow that link. Both what I wrote for my review and the extensive collection of quotes I pulled out to share are relevant to your research and might give you some ideas. It includes a link to a famous, much debated article from over ten years ago titled "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age by Douglas Rushkoff - It's about how to use our digital technology as tools that we control instead of letting it dictate the terms of use--and our habits, perceptions, and thoughts--to us.

Out on the Wire: Uncovering the Secrets of Radio's New Masters of Story by Jessica Abel - A documentary graphic novel about the making of documentary radio stories. And it is a story about storytelling with audio as the medium.

Wild Things: The Joy of Reading Children's Literature as an Adult by Bruce Handy – Maybe not so much for your research, but good thoughts about what it means to engage with a book.

How to Raise a Reader by Pamela Paul – A wonderful, accessible look at the skills involved in reading, including a love of books, and how they develop.

What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund – A graphic designer describes what happens when the brain encounters a written description in a book, how the brain takes words and turns them into a “picture.”

Finally, this article. It’s from 15 years ago, so I know much research on the topic has been done since. This is good to inform your thinking a place to launch into learning from, but I’d advise looking for newer research:

Can intelligent literature survive in the digital age?

"The aim of my course is to produce 'transliterate' writers – ie, literate across many different kinds of media. When we think 'literacy' we think about print and transliteracy is about shaking off that domination of print which has, in a sense, I think, been a distraction.

"The internet has caused us to rethink what we mean by literacy: the [traditional] idea of literacy implies that before print people were illiterate – but, in fact, people simply were literate in many other things, such as oral and visual culture.

"One of the writers from my course is Alison Norrington, a chick-lit author: she learnt how to take her stories beyond the book on a blog, on Facebook, on Twitter, by making little movies, by sending her heroine into Second Life. Another is Christine Wilkes, who has a filmmaking background and wrote an interactive memoir using design and programming. You don't need to be able to read and write much to tell a story.

"Will books exist in 50 years? Definitely, but they will also be just one of the many ways we experience art. I feel quite cynical about the cloak of preciousness that's been woven around the novel: it's such a recent medium – we've only had it a few hundred years and yet you often hear people say, 'We've always had novels.' No we have not!"

Please let me know your questions and I can give you more focused responses about particular areas. I’m happy to set up a video chat or other methods of communication if you would like. (You can probably tell my preferred literacy is written. 😊)

Enjoy,

[Degolar]

I just received her response. She has many in-depth interview questions for me. I have a feeling my responses will be part of my next post.

It was clearly not a short message, but it was easy and fun for me to write because it's the kind of thing I'm always wondering and reading about it myself. I had a store of information ready to go and share. And I feel really good about what I was able to compose so quickly. Thus my sharing it here.

One of the worries I had in offering to send the email was that I knew, even before starting, that what I wrote would not be short or simple because I had so many thoughts to share. I thought it might be overwhelming for a young student. But colleagues assured me she could handle it.

That brings to mind this recent piece I like, written in response to attempts pull books from school and library shelves.

Republican Lawmakers Might Not Be Able to Handle the Truth, But Kids Can

How are students supposed to learn how to deal with these weighty subjects if they can’t read about them—and read about them from different perspectives? The solution is not to take away the books that might address these issues.

We shouldn’t be afraid of students reading whatever books they can read and learning all the history they can learn. Studies show that the more you read and write, the less likely you are to go to prison and the more likely you are to finish high school, graduate from college, get a job, and volunteer in your community. Young readers are also more likely to vote—and chances are they will be better informed voters because they read and think critically.

The best young writers in the contests I judge clearly sense form and structure, and I like to think that if they know what makes good writing, they will know how to shape their lives. I give these students a lot of credit for just sitting down and mulling over complex and deeply personal subjects, topics many adults spend a lifetime avoiding.

They inspire me.

I wish the book banners and the anti-CRT folk could read these student essays and see for themselves how young people process, understand, and, often, overcome life’s traumas and injustices.

But then, they’d probably ban them.

We often don't give young people enough credit for their capabilities.

Speaking of What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund (mentioned in my message to the student), I'm sure it informed what I wrote in my most recent book review. I wrote of his book in Backward Phrenology, including:

Central to Mendelsund's point is that readers participate in co-creating the meaning of everything they read. When we read the word "river," for instance, all meaning attached to the word comes from our own experiences. The sights, sounds, and smells we associate with the word will be the ones we have experienced before. The only rivers we can imagine are those we have already seen, so no matter how precisely the author describes a river, all imagery will come from us as readers. We co-create what we see.

My review was very short because the book is part of a series, so anything I say won't mean much to those without context, but I did decide to mention something about the author's style of writing.

Mister Impossible (Dreamer Trilogy, #2) by Maggie Stiefvater

More Stiefvater Dreamer goodness. More complexity develops in her world-building and possibly the worst cliffhanger ending yet. My addiction continues.

Aside from the specifics of this book, I realized during it part of what I like so much about Stiefvater's writing. Extensive physical descriptions have never been that effective for me, but her descriptions are more conceptual than physical. They give you the idea of the description and let you provide the specifics of the picture yourself. An example:

He was, in most ways, the polar opposite of his mercurial pupils. Nothing startled him nor sent him flying off the handle. He did not laugh hysterically or burst into rageful tears. He did not swagger or self-abuse, indulge or self-abnegate. He simply was. Everything about his posture announced him not as an apex predator, but rather as something powerful enough that he could opt out of the predator-prey scenario entirely. All of this without a tousled lock of tawny hair out of place.

And also:

A petite woman with very good posture and aggressively straightened brunette hair pressed past Jordan and through the crowd toward the front. She was dressed in a cocktail dress that said, Look at me, and also said, Now that you're looking, did you notice I think you're stupid? It was a good dress. She did not say excuse me.

And:

Declan gave Matthew his most Declan of faces. He generally used one of two expressions. The first was Bland Businessman Nodding at What You're Saying While Waiting for His Turn to Talk and the other was Reticent Father with Irritable Bowel Syndrome Realizes He Must Let His Child Use the Public Restroom First. They suited nearly every situation Declan found himself in. This, however, was a third expression: Exasperated Twentysomething Longs to Yell at His Brother Because Oh My God. He rarely used it, but the lack of practice didn't make it any less accomplished or any less pure Declan.

Finally, the one that opens the book, which I particularly enjoy because I grew up in landscape like this:

It was Illinois, probably, or one of those states that start with an I. Indiana. Iowa. wIsconsin. Fields, but not the postcard kind. No picturesque barns. No aesthetically rusted farm equipment. Just stubbled field. They sky was very blue. The rubbled end-of-season wheat fields were very bright and pale. Everything was very clear. It was like an ocean vacation, without the ocean. Bisecting the landscape was a highway: very flat, very straight, gray-white with salt.

"Conceptual descriptions." I like that thought.

This came out for Valentine's Day, and of course I love it and want to share it.

A Love Letter to Libraries, Long Overdue

As local safety nets shriveled, the library roof magically expanded from umbrella to tarp to circus tent to airplane hangar. The modern library keeps its citizens warm, safe, healthy, entertained, educated, hydrated and, above all, connected.

Imagine a teacher who’s responsible for a mixed-age classroom where students are free to wander in and out as they please, all opinions are welcome and detention is not an option. This person is also the principal, the guidance counselor, the school nurse and, occasionally, the janitor. This person is your local librarian.

Yet somehow librarians still find time to match people with the books they need. These selections may be second-guessed by irate taxpayers who don’t know the difference between F. Scott Fitzgerald and L. Ron Hubbard or don’t understand that ideas and stories aren’t contagious; the only disease they’ll infect you with is empathy. Nevertheless, librarians persist. One could argue that they distribute more wings than an airline pilot. Put yours to good use and you can fly anywhere.

Libraries have always been a place of worship for a certain type of person, but they’re also community centers, meeting houses and pop-up medical clinics, offering vaccines, homework help, computer classes, craft sessions and tax advice. Perhaps you need fresh needles, marigold seeds, a loaner guitar, a hammer, a venue for your knitting club or a donation box for your old eyeglasses? Head to your local library. It might have you covered and, if it doesn’t, someone there will know where to send you.

Best of all, you never need a reason or an invitation to go to the library. You aren’t required to make a reservation ahead of time or purchase a cup of coffee while you’re there. You can pop in when your Wi-Fi is on the fritz or you need a break from your roommates. You might go there to dry off or to cool down. To study for algebra or to read a romance novel. To stock up on thrillers or to take stock of your less-than-thrilling life. To meet a friend or to be alone. For a bit of excitement or for a moment of calm. . . . 

We all know that books connect us, that language has quiet power. To see the concentration, curiosity and peace on faces lit by words is to know — beyond a shadow of a doubt, in a time rife with shadows — that libraries are the beating hearts of our communities. What we borrow from them pales in comparison to what we keep. How often we pause to appreciate their bounty is up to us.

Such an eloquent and accurate description.

The other day I was looking at my Goodreads shelves and had a thought. One way to describe me would be that I constantly read kids books for work, and when I need a break I read books about the history of the semicolon for fun. Here's a screengrab of a section of my adult nonfiction recreational reading.

I even quickly threw together a really bad graphic for it.

Speaking of me, we've started doing the official Strengths Finder Assessment at work as a self-awareness and team building thing. The paid version (I did a free online one about 10 years ago; see here; this is definitely better.) It tells you your top five strengths out of a list of 34, then it customizes the descriptions of how you manifest each based on how all of your answers work together--3 in my small work group had "Input" as our top strength, but each long-paragraph description was unique. I find it fascinating.

My strengths, in order:

Input | Learner | Intellection | Connectedness | Individualization

The 34 strengths are grouped into four domains. My top three are from the "Strategic Thinking" domain and the other two from the "Relationship Building" domain. I don't have any in my top five from the "Executing" or "Influencing" domains.

Here are my long, full results, the short, general descriptions of each theme first followed by two long paragraphs about my particular combination of them.

INPUT

People who are especially talented in the Input theme have a craving to know more. Often they like to collect and archive all kinds of information.

What makes you stand out?

Driven by your talents, you are quite comfortable having time to yourself to enjoy a favorite pastime: reading. Whether you are sitting on a quiet beach or in a crowded airport terminal, you create your own space with a book, magazine, newspaper, document, or correspondence. Gleaning information, inspiration, or insights from these sources can make your relaxation more pleasurable or your delays more tolerable. Because of your strengths, you occasionally spend hours unraveling the mysteries of complicated procedures, routines, or systems. Perhaps your step-by-step descriptions help individuals understand how something operates. Chances are good that you are willing to spend time sharing your ideas with intelligent individuals. Of course, you want them to tell you their latest thinking. Conversations that involve a lot of questions and answers stimulate your mind. You know you have spent your time wisely when you have a number of new ideas, theories, or concepts to somehow file away or remember for future use. By nature, you continually absorb, integrate, or catalog new information with ease. Ever eager to expand your knowledge base, you read avidly. Because you can access your memory bank at any time, you are free to process writers’ or researchers’ ideas immediately or at a later time. It’s very likely that you acknowledge that you sometimes reduce elaborate procedures, ideas, regulations, or systems to their basic parts. This partially explains why you can tell some individuals how certain things operate.

You are inquisitive. You collect things. You might collect information--words, facts, books, and quotations--or you might collect tangible objects such as butterflies, baseball cards, porcelain dolls, or sepia photographs. Whatever you collect, you collect it because it interests you. And yours is the kind of mind that finds so many things interesting. The world is exciting precisely because of its infinite variety and complexity. If you read a great deal, it is not necessarily to refine your theories but, rather, to add more information to your archives. If you like to travel, it is because each new location offers novel artifacts and facts. These can be acquired and then stored away. Why are they worth storing? At the time of storing it is often hard to say exactly when or why you might need them, but who knows when they might become useful? With all those possible uses in mind, you really don’t feel comfortable throwing anything away. So you keep acquiring and compiling and filing stuff away. It’s interesting. It keeps your mind fresh. And perhaps one day some of it will prove valuable.

LEARNER

People who are especially talented in the Learner theme have a great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. In particular, the process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them.

What makes you stand out?

By nature, you spend considerable time examining exactly why something has gone wrong. Whenever you experience a personal or professional loss, make a mistake, or experience failure, you tend to investigate. You are likely to be restless until you have answers to all your basic questions: What? How? When? Where? Who? Why? It’s very likely that you treasure books and other publications because they are rich sources of information. You regard the written word as a gateway to a vast world of new ideas. Your quest to interpret events, grasp facts or understand concepts appears limitless. Frequently you read to broaden your perspective on very familiar as well as altogether unfamiliar topics. Driven by your talents, you have little difficulty giving intense effort to projects, problems, or opportunities that capture and keep your attention. Because of your strengths, you may prefer to enroll in demanding classes. Perhaps you thrive in situations where you can test your talents or your endurance to discover how much you can accomplish. You may need to “prove yourself to yourself” every now and then. Chances are good that you routinely gather historical facts or artifacts — that is, pictures, tools, books, artwork, correspondence, or documents. You often wait to determine whether this information is useful. Your interest in history probably has no purpose other than to answer your own questions. You are simply intrigued by the past and its people. The future starts to take shape in your mind as soon as you begin to rummage through your collection of historic truths and objects.

You love to learn. The subject matter that interests you most will be determined by your other themes and experiences, but whatever the subject, you will always be drawn to the process of learning. The process, more than the content or the result, is especially exciting for you. You are energized by the steady and deliberate journey from ignorance to competence. The thrill of the first few facts, the early efforts to recite or practice what you have learned, the growing confidence of a skill mastered--this is the process that entices you. Your excitement leads you to engage in adult learning experiences--yoga or piano lessons or graduate classes. It enables you to thrive in dynamic work environments where you are asked to take on short project assignments and are expected to learn a lot about the new subject matter in a short period of time and then move on to the next one. This Learner theme does not necessarily mean that you seek to become the subject matter expert, or that you are striving for the respect that accompanies a professional or academic credential. The outcome of the learning is less significant than the “getting there.”

INTELLECTION

People who are especially talented in the Intellection theme are characterized by their intellectual activity. They are introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions.

What makes you stand out?

Chances are good that you designate a minimum of five hours a week for solitary thinking. You probably have figured out how to eliminate distractions and interruptions. You accept the fact that you have less free time to spend with family, friends, coworkers, teammates, or classmates. Because of your strengths, you characteristically read books, periodicals, documents, correspondence, or Internet sites. You are willing to be mentally stimulated by thought-provoking ideas, information, data, predictions, insights, characters, or plots. Driven by your talents, you read to stimulate your mind, to broaden your perspective, and to explore familiar as well as unfamiliar subjects. Reading is a solitary activity, which is one of the reasons why you like it so much. You are quite comfortable being alone with your books and your thoughts. Instinctively, you continually seek wisdom from people with whom you have intelligent conversations. You not only listen but also share your thoughts. In the process, you are likely to move beyond concrete facts. Your curiosity draws you to speculate — that is, reflect or wonder — about theories, ideas, or concepts. To keep your mind fresh, you frequently quiz individuals who are equally fascinated with the intangible and abstract aspects of life. By nature, you are the ideal example of a person with an open and agile mind. Thinking consumes a great portion of your time. You like to exchange ideas with individuals who are as well-read as you are. Your passion for the written word fuels your thought processes and lays the groundwork for sophisticated conversations. When you are alone, you probably reflect upon the thoughts of brilliant writers or the findings of notable researchers.

You like to think. You like mental activity. You like exercising the “muscles” of your brain, stretching them in multiple directions. This need for mental activity may be focused; for example, you may be trying to solve a problem or develop an idea or understand another person’s feelings. The exact focus will depend on your other strengths. On the other hand, this mental activity may very well lack focus. The theme of Intellection does not dictate what you are thinking about; it simply describes that you like to think. You are the kind of person who enjoys your time alone because it is your time for musing and reflection. You are introspective. In a sense you are your own best companion, as you pose yourself questions and try out answers on yourself to see how they sound. This introspection may lead you to a slight sense of discontent as you compare what you are actually doing with all the thoughts and ideas that your mind conceives. Or this introspection may tend toward more pragmatic matters such as the events of the day or a conversation that you plan to have later. Wherever it leads you, this mental hum is one of the constants of your life.

CONNECTEDNESS

People who are especially talented in the Connectedness theme have faith in the links between all things. They believe there are few coincidences and that almost every event has a reason.

What makes you stand out?

Driven by your talents, you routinely isolate facts that link ideas, events, or people. You are especially sensitive to how one person’s optimistic or negative thoughts can affect the entire human family. This prompts you to pay close attention to what individuals and groups think and do. By nature, you may be able to build bonds that unite different types of people. Sometimes their agendas clash. Perhaps your appreciation of everyone’s uniqueness frees you to help certain individuals direct their attention to what everyone has in common. Chances are good that you may be guided by the notion that no one can live life without some help from others. Perhaps this idea compels you to consider how what you do and say affects people you know and individuals you will never meet. It’s very likely that you might come away refreshed after conversing with future-oriented thinkers. Maybe you inspire them with your passion for projects or causes that benefit humanity or the environment. Sometimes you feel restless when your life lacks great and noble purpose. Because of your strengths, you consider people more important than things. The value you place on humankind guides your decision-making. It also influences what you say and do as well as what you choose not to say and do.

Things happen for a reason. You are sure of it. You are sure of it because in your soul you know that we are all connected. Yes, we are individuals, responsible for our own judgments and in possession of our own free will, but nonetheless we are part of something larger. Some may call it the collective unconscious. Others may label it spirit or life force. But whatever your word of choice, you gain confidence from knowing that we are not isolated from one another or from the earth and the life on it. This feeling of Connectedness implies certain responsibilities. If we are all part of a larger picture, then we must not harm others because we will be harming ourselves. We must not exploit because we will be exploiting ourselves. Your awareness of these responsibilities creates your value system. You are considerate, caring, and accepting. Certain of the unity of humankind, you are a bridge builder for people of different cultures. Sensitive to the invisible hand, you can give others comfort that there is a purpose beyond our humdrum lives. The exact articles of your faith will depend on your upbringing and your culture, but your faith is strong. It sustains you and your close friends in the face of life’s mysteries.

INDIVIDUALIZATION

People who are especially talented in the Individualization theme are intrigued with the unique qualities of each person. They have a gift for figuring out how people who are different can work together productively.

What makes you stand out?

It’s very likely that you help individuals acquire knowledge and gain skills. You are a fine instructor, tutor, and/or trainer. Instinctively, you repeatedly let people benefit from your sound reasoning and logical assessment of opportunities, problems, regulations, policies, or proposed solutions. Chances are good that you enjoy being busy, especially when you can assist someone in need. You are likely to be a good partner at home, in the workplace, at school, or in the community. You tend to do more than is expected of you. Why? You probably worry about wasting time. This explains your habits of volunteering for projects and asking for extra duties. By nature, you occasionally credit yourself with having a gift for seeing the unique talents that make people different from one another. You may have little patience for placing people into broadly-defined categories. Perhaps you describe individuals in specific and vivid detail. Because of your strengths, you now and then pause to recognize how people are alike and how they are different. Maybe you know a lot about each person’s talents, interests, background, dreams, or limitations.

Your Individualization theme leads you to be intrigued by the unique qualities of each person. You are impatient with generalizations or “types” because you don’t want to obscure what is special and distinct about each person. Instead, you focus on the differences between individuals. You instinctively observe each person’s style, each person’s motivation, how each thinks, and how each builds relationships. You hear the one-of-a-kind stories in each person’s life. This theme explains why you pick your friends just the right birthday gift, why you know that one person prefers praise in public and another detests it, and why you tailor your teaching style to accommodate one person’s need to be shown and another’s desire to “figure it out as I go.” Because you are such a keen observer of other people’s strengths, you can draw out the best in each person. This Individualization theme also helps you build productive teams. While some search around for the perfect team “structure” or “process,” you know instinctively that the secret to great teams is casting by individual strengths so that everyone can do a lot of what they do well.

Because reading these descriptions makes me feel seen and flattered, and because I'm a big nerd, I've continued to play with them. I love those paragraphs, but feel like they're too much text. So I started pulling out key phrases. Then I removed some of the extraneous verbiage (i.e. "tend to," etc.). And then it somehow turned into something like a poem.

A craving to know more,

gleaning information, inspiration, insights,

unraveling the mysteries.

Questions and answers stimulate your mind.

You continually absorb, integrate, catalog new information.

You read avidly,

are inquisitive,

collect information.

The kind of mind that finds so many things interesting;

the world is exciting precisely because of

its infinite variety and complexity.

You tend to investigate.

You treasure books.

Your quest to:

 - interpret events,

 - grasp facts,

 - understand concepts

appears limitless.

You love to learn.

You will always be drawn to the process of learning.

The process.

Journey from ignorance to competence.

Solitary thinking.

You read:

 - to stimulate your mind,

 - to broaden your perspective,

 - to explore familiar as well as unfamiliar subjects.

Alone with your books and your thoughts,

you continually seek wisdom,

reflect or wonder — about theories, ideas, concepts,

fascinated with the intangible and abstract aspects of life.

You are a person with an open and agile mind.

Thinking consumes a great portion of your time.

Passion for the written word.

You like mental activity,

time for musing and reflection.

This mental hum is one of the constants of your life.

You link ideas, events, people,

how one person can affect the entire human family,

build bonds that unite different types of people,

appreciation of everyone’s uniqueness,

what everyone has in common.

No one can live life without some help from others.

Passion to benefit humanity, the environment.

You consider people more important than things;

the value you place on humankind guides you.

You know that we are all connected,

we are part of something larger,

we are not isolated from one another or from the earth and the life on it.

Connectedness implies certain responsibilities:

we must not harm others because we will be harming ourselves,

we must not exploit because we will be exploiting ourselves.

You are considerate, caring, and accepting;

you are a bridge builder for people of different cultures.

You help individuals acquire knowledge and gain skills,

are a fine instructor, tutor, trainer.

You enjoy being busy.

You are a good partner.

You tend to do more than is expected of you.

You recognize how people are alike and how they are different,

intrigued by the unique qualities of each person,

observe:

 - each person’s style,

 - each person’s motivation,

 - how each thinks,

 - and how each builds relationships.

You are such a keen observer of other people’s strengths,

you can draw out the best in each person.

You build productive teams.

The even shorter version at the beginning of this post is my attempt to reduce it down as far as possible to just the core ideas.

This blog is one of the main places I store my knowledge collection.

This doesn't really have anything to do with the rest of the post, but it's something I want to add to the collection.

Why Money Manages Us

Different from most other tools, money — even just thinking about it — influences our behavior in negative ways. We become more likely to prioritize our feelings, desires, and goals over getting along with and helping others. Money creates a tension between individualistic and interpersonal motives. . . . 

Experiments have found two broad buckets of effects when people are reminded of money. The first is generally positive: They prefer tasks that allow them to go it alone; resist being helped on tough problems; and perform better, longer, and harder. From an organizational and societal perspective, these are good things. Our second finding reveals a darker side: They share, help, and empathize less than people who have not thought about money. When it comes to the moral fabric of society, these are not ideal behaviors.

We’ve also found these behaviors in children. . . . The children who had played with money were less helpful, though they worked smartly and diligently, for instance persisting on challenging puzzles and finding the correct way through a maze. . . .

From my recent feed.

Also from my recent feed, something I've always felt but never been able to articulate.

There is power in whimsy.

Whimsy is enthusiasm that refuses to defend itself with practicality.

It is finding meaning in pure enjoyment.

It is the practice of honoring delight for delight's sake.

When being awake feel gray and stale, try inviting more whimsy into your life.

It is very similar, in my mind, to this quote I pulled out of one of the books I just finished reading.

Listen: magic is life. Life is twisty-turny, topsy-turvy, and breaks as many rules as bright magic. Life can be as dark and cruel as shadow magic. And life can zigzag between them both. You'll meet good people who are vain, self-absorbed, and careless, like the Crystal Faeries. You'll meet bad people who reform and start jewelry shops in cities. Wise old innkeepers will infuriate you with their absentmindedness yet surprise you with their generosity; distinguished judges will be mulish and cantankerous yet ultimately fair. Those meant to care for you will fail you, or fade from your life; strangers will offer shelter, or step in and become family. Find the thread of love and beauty in it all.

― Jaclyn Moriarty, Oscar From Elsewhere

Find the thread of love, beauty, magic, and whimsy in it all.

Like taking your Strengths Finder results and turning it into a poem.