Reading Might Be a Collaborative Effort

Reading the same book, seeing different landscapes

After reading a book or manga, I like to read the reviews, and I find myself browsing through them.
Thinking, "Oh, this person reads it this way," is interesting in itself.
They often have a way of reading that I never would have thought of, leading to new discoveries.

Conversely, sometimes I pick up a work after reading reviews.
After reading a beautifully and attractively written review, I start reading with high expectations, only to sometimes feel let down, thinking, "Huh?"

The world this person sees is so rich.
Yet I cannot understand it.
I cannot grasp it.
I sometimes feel a bit down about my lack of reading comprehension or the low resolution of my understanding.

The reader is also quite busy

Reading is often thought of as a passive act, but I believe it actually has a very active side.

Reading a work is not about accepting exactly what the author wrote.
Rather, it is closer to a collaboration between the author and the reader.

No matter how deep a theme the author presents, it is not guaranteed to reach the reader.
Some people stop reading halfway through just because there are too many kanji or too much text.

The reader reads based on their own experiences, culture, thoughts, and level of understanding.
This also includes their emotions and timing at that moment.

The author does their best to ensure it reaches the reader.
However, they cannot control how it is read.
As long as the writer and the reader are different people, that is unavoidable, and personally, I think that is fine.

Continuing the relationship while misreading

Turning to the real world, the difficulty of mutual understanding increases even further.

The receiver cannot always correctly understand the meaning of the other person's words or actions.
That is natural because we are different people, and it becomes more complex because it includes appearance, tone of voice, and even non-verbal expressions.

With reading, you might be able to check your answers in a sense by reading reviews.
You also have time to think carefully. You can re-read.
Even if you were wrong, it doesn't have a major impact.

But in the real world, there are only situations where you have to judge instantly.
Regretting, "I should have acted differently at that time," is partly because we are judging within a limited time. There is no redoing it.
And you have to deal with multiple things at once.

Including all of that, perhaps we call it "compatibility" when human relationships go well or don't.

The issue of compatibility arises because each person is just too different.
We live while seeing completely different worlds, even while using the same words.

I sometimes even think that we might be a collection of aliens from different planets.

Diversity is likely a survival strategy that people have acquired to survive, but it also causes arguments, and honestly, I often find it troublesome.

But through relationships with others, we are sometimes polished as people or taken to different horizons.
The richness of life probably lies in that.

Sometimes we misread, sometimes we fail to fully understand, yet we continue this collaborative effort.

I am not sure if it is correct, but that is how I feel.