The Mindful Reader’s Toolkit

How I became a mindful reader, what that means to me, and the things that keep me accountable (free notion template inside!)

Aug 20, 2024

Thanks for opening this post, you’re reading Stories and States’ August-Edition (Part 1)!

This first post of the month delves into a story close to the purpose of this newsletter. I hope it helps you with your own journey in the emerging world.

Table of Contents

The Birth of a Mindful Reader

Maybe it’s something to do with 2024 when in its beginning in the throws of exams I battled with preference, or maybe it’s to do with the world, and how it has hinged into a newer dimension of mayhem — whatever the matter I found myself for the first time in a refusal to sink back into unawareness. January rained down with a revival of demanding, marching, rejuvenated laymen who rightfully showed how aghast the irrationality of government bodies were, and I was right there with them.

No one is free until all of us are free.

I spent those cold days on campus questioning everything. By then, the social media crusade was still strong, and updates on the genocide in Gaza raged through everyone’s stories. I would get dropped off in front of my department early in the morning, and then walk for 20 minutes with no music, and no instagram in hand to just breathe until I stumbled into one of the cafes for breakfast. This had nothing to do with wanting to escape the world, but because it all felt insufficient and I needed to reflect on why. In those early days the online action was so instilled in debate about the distractions, that it felt like everyone was screaming without really achieving a lot.

What we did manage to achieve back then was trigger an awareness for the external, bare minimum tendrils that were weaving a bigger picture. Free Sudan, Free the Congo, and eventually discussions on Late-stage Capitalism, Climate Crises and the impacts of these “conflicts” started coming to light.

I battled preference. Subdued in literature ethics, trying to piece puzzles within the reader-scape to understand the more complex case-to-case solutions to the emerging layers I needed to dodge to consume the “right” way under all these systematic errors.

I was still running on regurgitated bare minimums from the social media landscapes.

Was studying psychology even worth it now?

Is any degree worth it?

After all, these are all capitalist institutes.

When was the last time learning was a top priority for them instead of the corporate world?

How does that play into moral living?

The outer world mimicked my inner one. Any personal grievances became trivial in the light of my potential as an offline being. You can’t lace together solutions from surface knowledge and repeated mantras. Reacting was what oppressors banked on to steal our time, and eat away the small chances of victory we had. I had to be better.

Come the end of winter rains, and beginning of spring breeze — I had to read the right things to equip myself with the right knowledge, and social media shrunk to the back-burner in light of a more mindful journey.

August is now ending and there’s much I have learned.

In a podcast I was listening to recently, Broey Deschanel told Matt Bernstein:

“…because I am a woman I don't actually have to look into any of that, like I am a woman so I’m inherently a feminist and its like I do think actually it takes some work to be a feminist, I think it takes learning.”

That’s what my reading is today. About learning human beings, and the world, and what we’ve created out of it. I glide through genre fiction, and pick up some non-fiction education along the way. I read like a turtle in a race with the rabbit. Steadfastly. And with as much optimism I can dredge up from my soul.

Before We Continue

We have acquired ourselves 28 new subscribers this month! That makes us a total of 94 Statesmen now as of 20th August.

A very warm welcome to our newest Statesmen 🌲📜🕯️

— Thank you for joining our little community!

To my longtime statesmen, welcome back! I truly appreciate seeing you here time and time again.

And to the wanderer who’s stumbled upon this post — hello! I’m Bakhtawar, and I write about the dilemmas surrounding reading, and occasionally write personal essays here at Stories and States. If that sounds like something that appeals to you, consider subscribing — it’s all free!

If you enjoy following the newsletter, consider becoming a patron to Stories and States by upgrading to a paid subscription. Your support not only helps maintain the newsletter but also supports a college student's journey!

The Toolkit

I use two things to stay mindful when I read, the first one being this Notion Template I created, and the second one is the notes app Obsidian. If you click the template link, you’ll be sent to here:

Navigating my Mindful Reader’s Notion Template

The first column:

I use this column to reflect over what I want to achieve over the month. Having a clear goal not only helps me read things that add to my knowledge, but it also helps me decide what I want to read to achieve that. It helps me find literature that originates from the relevant places, and gets me to explore genre’s and knowledge I otherwise wouldn’t.

The Database Column

The “My Reading” Database has three views:

The Database has the following properties:

Author: A select property in which you can add more authors and keep track of who you’ve read and read more from.
Date Started
Date Ended
Genre: A multi-select property
Goal: A select property
Notes: Incase you want to stop and start a new book you can add what chapter you stopped reading a book at, or any other relevant notes.
Stars: a number property to track your preference by reviewing
Status: TBR / Reading / Read
Type: A multi-select tag you can add more specific details e.g Feminism, Capitalism, Reluctant-mentor etc.

I built this system to be extremely easy and applicable to use, any more complicated and I wouldn’t have used it. For any further help, feel free to DM me through chat or email me at bismabch@gmail.com.

If you want to learn how to use Notion, I recommend watching this video:

Obsidian

I take it one step further, and along with this tracker I use obsidian to contemplate and take notes. Obsidian is a notes app with some really nice features, including showing you a mind map of all your notes like so: