Reading by Rite
A side effect from Write of Passage
As of May 2024, I would caution anyone from taking Write of Passage. You can read more about what little I have been told here.
If you don’t read good books, you will read bad ones. If you don’t go on thinking rationally, you will go on thinking irrationally. If you reject aesthetic satisfactions, you will fall into sensual satisfactions.
-C.S. Lewis, Learning in War-Time
There was never going to be a good time to do Write of Passage.
My wife was in the hospital with complications after delivering our first kid. My mom was facing a terminal cancer diagnosis. I suffered a freak accident to my left leg rendering it near useless. I said no to a ton of work. It was already a rough wallet year.
Looking at my calendar, I knew I wanted to take Write of Passage this year. It had been alluring to me ever since I read David Perell’s essays Why You’re Christian and Peter Thiel’s Religion. Reflecting on the impact those two essays had on me, I signed up for Cohort 9 in September of 2022.
After all, excuses are thieves and I wasn’t about to let them rob me.
In all the ways Write of Passage catalyzed change in my life, perhaps the one that rarely if ever makes the marketing copy is how my reading changed. Before Write of Passage, I would read roughly a dozen books a year. I would retain general themes and rarely discuss the ideas gained. Reading was a slow and lonely endeavor.
A side effect of finding your people, are all the books behind the eyes you meet. In every soul is a curator, a librarian of sorts, waiting to share an artifact of themselves. That to me is one of the most exciting and valuable things about Write of Passage.
David Perell and I connected with an affinity for the late David McCullough. During one session, I held up my copy of Mornings on Horseback. David then raised from his desk a copy of The Wright Brothers. Within a week I bought and consumed the story of the first men to fly. When several peers recommended I read Walden by Henry David Thoreau, the Lord led me to the most beautiful pressing of pages written on a New England pond.
When I confessed to a small group at Write of Passage that I hadn’t read much fiction, I was immediately inundated with another lifetime of reading recommendations. The conviction of my colleagues convinced me I needed to find a fiction for myself. They invited me to seek a story that speaks of things culture could not let us say.
In this vein, I found and devoured Ben Hur by Lew Wallace.
All cliché aside, that book changed my life…
When Tiago Forte asked this past week what were my all-time top five reads, I realized I had read or re-read all of these recently:
Ben Hur by Lew Wallace
Walden by Henry David Thoreau
The Interior Castle by Teresa of Avila
Alexander the Great by Philip Freeman
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris
I continue to re-read, reference, and sit with little things from each of these bindings. There are mornings where I need to relight my soul and Teresa of Avila is there. When I require a sheer force of will, I can return to Freeman’s biography of that Great Macedonian. On other days when my mind must remember how to meander, I meet with Thoreau. If I must write with that punctual punch, then Morris makes me confront the Man in the Arena. And if I must publish something that could have me crucified, I ask Lew Wallace and he replies.
In many ways finding my library was a cornerstone of finding my tribe. Books like people require a relationship. They need to be revisited. They must be sought after and valued. Most men keep friends on LinkedIn like a library where books are never opened. As pixels don’t collect dust, we are rarely reminded to pick each other up. This is but two of the great tragedies of our time.
Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore possess wisdom
and with all you possess, acquire prudence.
Exalt her and she shall promote you
She shall bring you to honor when you embrace her.
from Proverbs 4
Write of Passage not only made me a Creative capable of quality writing and consistent publishing, this course turned every page into my next rite of passage. That alone was worth every cent.
Until next week,
-Steven
Write of Passage, Cohort 11 is open for enrollment now. Go fast. Cohort 11 begins October 2nd.
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“A side effect of finding your people, are all the books behind the eyes you meet. In every soul is a curator, a librarian of sorts, waiting to share an artifact of themselves. That to me is one of the most exciting and valuable things about Write of Passage.”
100%. Love this!
So blessed to have met you in Cohort 9, Steven! Absolutely wild to think that, a year later, we’re still meeting weekly(ish) in writing groups and living life through Zoom with other Cohort 9’ers. Ah, sweet serendipity.