Controlling your body is, however, only a minimal requirement. You must also have learned to pay no attention to the shapes of the letters on the page. You must see through them, so to speak, so that you can go directly to the meanings of the words they form. If you are preoccupied with the shapes of the letters, you will be an intolerably inefficient reader, likely to be thought stupid.
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In Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death," the author emphasizes the importance of not just controlling one's physical reading process, but also transcending the surface of the text. He suggests that effective reading requires seeing beyond the shapes of letters and focusing instead on the underlying meanings of the words. This shift is crucial for understanding and processing information efficiently.
Postman warns that those who remain fixated on the letters themselves may struggle to engage meaningfully with the content, leading to inefficiency and potentially being perceived as lacking intelligence. Thus, he argues that true comprehension comes from a deeper engagement with the text that bypasses the distractions of its presentation.
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