The Secret to Flight: Reading Widely and Being Challenged by Your Life’s Curriculum

Since I re-read one of my favorite books this month, my mind’s been circling back again and again to this idea: reading may just be the distinguishing factor on a person’s path to greatness. I’m hardly the first person to speculate about this, but I believe it’s important to keep the idea relevant. 

The book that put this in my head, again, is The Wright Brothers by David McCullough. If you’ve been following my blog, you may recognize that name because I’ve definitely written about him before or mentioned him in passing. I dedicated a whole post, in December, to why and how McCullough does such a phenomenal job bringing stories to life. Well, in this book, you can probably guess from the title who and what he’s writing about. Yes, it is Wilbur and Orville Wright and their journey to successfully flying a plane.

Naturally, as is the case with any biography, we must get insight into their childhoods and education growing up, if they received one. What was so encouraged in their home was a hunger for reading—about a wide range of things, too. The family’s bookshelf was their pride and joy. It was a habit formed in childhood that carried on into adulthood, and they retained so much of what they learned that then informed how they viewed and thought about the world. There were a few points, in their story, where that was drawn attention to, specifically with Wilbur. 

With the success of their flyer, it became necessary for one of the brothers to go abroad to Europe to provide demonstrations to the folks over there interested in signing contracts with them to begin buying replicas of the machine. There was an instance when Wilbur was traveling by train across Belgium, and he relayed to his companion, as they crossed the countryside, the facts and figures of a historic, significant battle that had played out once upon a time right there in that corner of Belgium and why it’d meant so much for the nation. It so amazed his companion because Wilbur prefaced it all with, “Oh, when I was a boy, I read about an important battle that happened right here…” and then there he was, forty years old, talking about the particulars like he’d just finished reading about them.

The Wright brothers are not alone in this category. Immediately, I’m thinking about Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Abraham Lincoln, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Stephen King. Funny that it’s American presidents and iconic authors that are top of mind. But, if you look into the biographies of successful people, you’re most likely going to find that their parents read to them or prioritized making books available. That they were frequent-fliers at their local library. That, throughout the entirety of their lives, books were easily on-hand.

And (here’s where this assessment might take a turn for the snobbish or judgemental; sorry not sorry) the books weren’t only lighthearted reads or popular novels of their time. They were heady nonfiction pieces. Classical poetry. Philosophy set down by great thinkers from antiquity. Biographies of figures who shaped the world. In other words, there was a holistic substance to what they were feeding their minds. They were reading to recall it, too, so that letters and conversation and diary entries might reflect the ideas they were encountering and consuming. 

I never want someone to think I’m condemning leisure reading or that I don’t also enjoy a story that allows me to escape into a fantasy land and plot. I’m in as much need for a well-done contemporary romance as I am for a thoughtful, poignant piece on an important historical moment. We can have both things, and, in fact, we have access to so much more than that, in today’s era of publication and literature access.

What I am advocating for is that we do a better job of taking advantage of the wide range of topics at our fingertips. This isn’t about finishing some token books and being able to say you’ve read them. This isn’t about having an air of superiority or claiming you’re a more well-read person than the average BookTok subscriber.

This is about digging into a text that forces you to think a little harder, ask more questions, apply your critical thinking skills, and walk away from the experience with more insight into how you’re inhabiting this world. This is about challenging yourself to start memorizing verses of poetry and reciting them to yourself to enrich your day-to-day. This is about resisting the urge to always gravitate to what’s easy or comfortable.

Because easy and comfortable don’t get the plane to fly. Refusing to be challenged means you never so much as board a train for Kitty Hawk with the parts of a glider ready to assemble and try out. Confining your reading life to a limited genre is limiting what you’re going to notice about your general life.

The Pew Research Center just put out a piece last month looking into America’s reading habits, with specifics concerning the format folks seem to prefer their reading material (i.e. digital or physical). Apparently, 75% of American adults have read (or mostly read) at least one book within the last year. The number drops for the group reading one to five books within the last year; that comes in at only 38%. 

So, I’m fully aware that telling people to read widely in an era when asking people to spend time with even two books is a lot, but I stand by it. Because I don’t think it’s too much to ask to care about what they consume and are putting into their minds. I understand there are more ways to encounter educational information—documentaries, podcasts, periodicals, etc.—yet that doesn’t diminish the necessity of the book. Choose your fighter—physical, e-book, or audio—and get reading. Let your education be continual. Surprise yourself with memorization of verses or sentences that speak to you. 

You get to decide whose biographies you pick up or which Classics you try out. In a way, you’re shaping the curriculum of your life. It’s not crucial that you’re reading what’s popular or what everyone’s talking about, though I do think you should keep an eye open to see what subjects and people are shaping culture and current events. Simply put: you have the freedom to choose—and you do yourself no favors by not choosing variety.

Don’t abandon the genres or the authors you already love. Don’t think that you only have to read things that are challenging or heady. All you have to do is start with one book. Pick a biography of a historical figure you’re already curious about (and, if there’s not someone who fits that bill for you, you need to learn more history, my friend) and take your time with their story. If it takes you all year to get through it, so be it so long as you’re intentional with it. 

Your self-education is a marathon, not a sprint. All you have to do is begin. Find your starting point, read with care, and learn how to fly your plane.