Breadth and Depth

Modern nonfiction is my guilty pleasure -- the words glide easily across my eyes and I feel connected to the present.

My journalism training has created within me a breadth that I hadn't noticed before. However, there is an absence of depth.

As comfortable as a certain type of book is, I feel a sense of stagnation that comes forth when challenges are lacking. As Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi explains in his book Flow, the right note is when something is challenging, but not to the point of anxiety. A lack of challenge leads to boredom.

Depth is where scholars and other experts offer their expertise on their topics of study. English Literature professors can offer that depth. So can political scientists.

The popular books encourage the beginning of the reading journey, but there is certainly more to explore in the written word.