Read for power. Ezra Pound said that. In 1946 the American government put him in a mental asylum for 12 years because he was a Mussolini superfan who was broadcasting propaganda on Italian radio during WW-II. Before that he was a poet. He helped launch the careers of Ernest Hemingway, T.S. Eliot, and other names you’ve heard. Read for power. Napoleon said he read history not as a plodding scholar but as a plundering conqueror. I seized conclusions, he said, that pleased me. Are you seizing conclusions that please you? Soldiers carry pictures of women they love to war. But in the deepest darkest pit of despair there is no woman. There is no love. There is only your instinct and your fundamental view of the world. Read for power. Seize conclusions that make your spirit soar. They will give you that mysterious extra push when everything is on the line. Nietzsche wrote that history is a relay race of greatness. The race is open to all, and the only condition is you must want to be great more than you want to be comfortable, happy, well-adjusted, well-liked, tranquil, relaxed, and the other good stuff. It’s a hell of a condition, but it’s the only condition. If you can accept this condition, you can run the relay race of greatness. Suddenly all the dead stories of long-gone heroes come alive. Suddenly Alexander The Great is telling you how to win wars. Suddenly Goethe is telling you how to write. Suddenly the torch of greatness is in your hand, red-hot, burning, and you must run. Athenian soldier Pheidippides took part in the victorious Battle of Marathon in 490 B.C. but then saw the defeated Persian ship head towards Athens. He thought they were going to falsely claim a victory and raid his homeland on their way out. So he ran. He dropped his weapons and ran. Dropped his clothes and ran. He ran for 42 kilometers nonstop, full-tilt, naked, his body screaming at him to stop, him not listening. He burst into the Athenian assembly, screamed WE WON, and died on the spot. In his honor long-distance races are called marathons now. You must run the relay race of greatness like Pheidippides ran the last race of his life. With intensity and ferocity and a stubbornness that makes the Gods sit up. And you won’t die. You will become immortal. You will pass on the torch of greatness into new hands. Your name will become a song and a myth and a warcry. Read for power.
Read Hit Reverse.
Let’s gooooo!!
Read to gain the knowledge that power is an empty prize.
Why should I care what millions of people I don't know think of me. Fame, power, greatness, are all false and empty promises that do not grant immortality. The sun going supernova and the final heat death of the universe will see to that.
Memento Mori, and read to understand what really has value.
Also, if anyone cared who ran to announce the victory at the battle of Marathon, the races would be called Pheidippides.