My doctor (who happens to be my father) gave me a cold stare: He gave that infamous doctor’s look of being thoroughly unimpressed with my self-maintenance. His folded arms mimicked his frown. “If you want to have less headaches,” he said, “you have to read less!”

Read less? Why not ask me to severe my right leg, too? To be denied reading and comprehension would be my worst handicap. If that happens, I would start parking in the “disabled zone” and pushing myself around in a wheelchair.

Our bodies are our only access into the physical or phenomenal world around us, though they may simply be carriers for future progeny. Beside that, taking care of it is important. But one can’t help that when one is obsessed with words.

There are two things I always carry with me, as much as possible: A bottle of water and a paperback. I believe this is one thing that if everyone did, we would live in a world of less suffering. It would be healthy physically and mentally. As Rousseau said in his Confessions: “We are so little formed for happiness in this world, that of necessity the soul or the body must suffer, when they do not suffer together, and a happy condition of the one nearly always injures the other.” Healthy people, then, means a clarity for good thought to flourish This is just my opinion but one I find reasonable. However, there does seem to be the downside to reading copiously: A rising headache-rate.

Consider your eyes: Light hits an object and is projected, by criss-cross intercessory pathways, into your eyes. The light is caught by the retina; an appropriate name since retina is derived from rete, ‘net’ in Latin. In contrast to insects’ compound eyes, which are incredibly sensitive and able to take in a great amount of the environment onto the smallest number of cells (therefore without the creature moving its head), human eyes are bulbous and accord greater ‘resolution’. The images travels through all parts of the eye, like the cornea, lens, etc. only to be upside down. It is then ‘flipped’ – an incredible array of neural activity occurs during this time. Our knowledge into vision gives us great insight by manipulation. Us social scientists, especially psychologists, are famous for our conjuring tricks to discover a part of human processes.

The psychologist Peter Wason had a test, which I would like you to look at. And what’s interesting is that this test is mostly not about vision at all. But have a look:

You are given four cards. The cards have a number on the one side and a letter on the other. Two of the cards facing you have a letter facing; the other two have the number facing. The cards you see are:

[D] [F] [3] [7]

You are given a rule: “If a card has [D] one the one side, it has a [3] on the other.” A simple if-then statement, if you will. The question is this: Which cards would you turn over to see if the rule is true? Have a think, then read on.

Wason found that most people choose simply [D]. Or perhaps [D] and [3]. The correct answer is to turn both [D] and [7]. If you turn [7] around, it would falsify the proof if you found [D] on its reverse. This is where the great Karl Popper’s influence shows, in this test.

What has this to do with vision? Aside from the nauseatingly obvious answer that you looked at the cards (nothing stops the test from also using other senses!), it reminds one of the development in children. We are not psychics, we have no extended vision wafting like ethereal pipelines to journey through space and time. For most of us, the most important position of according possible psychic abilities would be with other people: What they are thinking, what they are going to do, what matters to them, etc. We imagine that the ‘psychic’ thoughts would be like hearing our own thoughts. Or perhaps your ‘reader’s voice’ that you have whilst reading this article.

Yet, everyone has this ability!

A child, for example, learns to mimic the actions of mouths, hands, eyes, words. It notices the tongue and the light changes. As we grow, this is where ‘reading’ people comes from: Our vision. It is a pity that such a beautiful word is sometimes usurped by the demagogic legion of superstitious quacks. We learn about people from their nonverbal communication – it’s why people move their arms, even when talking on the phone. It helps clarify the visual ideas into a physical format: the vibrations from their vocal chords and movement of limbs. When giving people directions, we point with our fingers, we wind them through pathways unseen. When people greet each other, we can tell a lot from their nonverbal gestures: Consider two men in business suits, shaking hands. Now, consider a casually dressed man and a casually dressed woman embracing, holding each other for a long time, caressing each others’ backs. Now, consider a suited man shaking hands with a casually dressed woman, perhaps pecking her on the cheek. There are many inferences you can make, no doubt you are doing it automatically right now.

We are incredible creatures, learning and knowing intricate details from simply watching. From the use of our eyes. The stimulation accorded to the fluctuations of light, bouncing off the skin of other humans, as their bodies fluctuate to the dictates of their brains is the most important form of learning we garner. Being psychic is a cop-out; learning to read people, to heighten their experience of social interaction, is a true gift. Don’t fold your arms, don’t look away to often, lock their eyes and blink every few seconds – occasionally glance away when you speak. These are pieces of advice many body-language consultants give and they can enhance our interactions. But it all comes from watching, from being alert and from vision.

So, no. We do not have ‘psychic abilities’ but we can achieve the same results: We can infer from their appearance, their disposition, their body-language. And then we can just simply ‘ask’. The information is transferred, as we lock gazes and inquire as to the well-being of a fellow human. No psychic additives or preservatives needed to maintain a conversation or interest.

And this is why I read. My vision extends further, I feel my empathy expand upon contemplation of even fictional characters. My knowledge of our beautiful planet and our troubled species is minuscule – and it will always be so. One can not be aware of the extent of one’s ignorance but one can be aware of ignorance itself. This surely is a virtue. Books humble us, as words slide into our eyes. The feel of a soft page turning, as our brains are nourished. These are important. And it is a sad fact that my headaches will continue because I just can not stop reading.

“You read too much,” people tell me, with a kind of accusatory stare. How much is too much? What does that even mean? Life is short, Milan Kundera wrote, reading is long: the paradox is that I will never be able to read everything I want. Confound mortality for that and that alone. Perhaps my own Mephistopheles will arise from the ashes of my forsworn hellish domain to proffer a bargain. If so, I need to do some reading now to make sure I don’t sign anything too valuable away.

How interesting: Apparently, you only need one kidney….