What If Your Reading List Is Your Ticket To Utopia?

January 2026

What if the key to spiritual immortality, that elusive, encoded passport that will grant you entrance into whatever spiritual utopia you’re hoping to find one day, hinges exclusively on the books you’ve read throughout your lifetime?

Consider:

From the time we are very young, in nearly every culture, we are taught that the answers we seek, on almost any subject… spirituality, health and wellness, emotional stability, financial prosperity, moral and legal codes, intellectual strength, social interaction… can all be found inside books.  From Christianity, the Holy Bible; from Islam, the Holy Qur’an; from Judaism, the Tanakh and the Torah; from Hinduism, the Vedas; from Shinto, the Kojiki and Nihon Shoki; from Confucianism, the Four Books and the Five Classics; from Taoism, the Tao Te Ching… and the list goes on.  Books are the dominant tool of our spiritual, social, and intellectual education as they pass information and entertainment from one generation to the next.  Whether discovered carved on walls, scratched on animal skins, as stamps on clay tablets, hand copied with ink onto papyrus and parchment scrolls, printed with moveable type, or electronically fused to paper… Books and their many incarnations have been and remain revered as the answer key to life.

The American childhood experience is filled with encouragement to spend more time reading from around every corner: teachers, business leaders, civic organizations, religious leaders, and even family.  Television programming was specifically designed to enhance the expectation that a well-lived life included reading… and rainbows (which frequently translates into “a promise kept”).  Gently competitive peer pressure also played a role in fostering the idea that readers are winners.  We collected rewards for reading… not necessarily for understanding, although that was good too.  Incentives to read books materialized as stars on a wall chart in the classroom; free pizza from supportive restaurants; stickers, certificates, and prizes for participating in a summer reading program; and, in some cases, cash from our parents and grandparents.  Reading books was ingrained in us from the beginning of life as a requirement for growth, maturation, and acceptance.  Literacy meant reaching important milestones, and those milestones were the ruler that described the depth of a person’s character.  School graduation, acceptance into elite universities, securing the “right” occupation, receiving promotions with substantial pay raises… all hinged on the level of proficiency one mastered by turning pages.  Indeed, social, intellectual, and emotional stigma befell those who were illiterate (and it still does).  If books aren’t the key, why would reading be so strongly subsidized with all this effort?

As adults, the number of titles we read is often seen as a benchmark of the social strata we have climbed and attained.  Much like the Sharpie® marker lines on the door frame, the value of your intellectual and emotional growth is measured by the list of books you’ve read.  Membership in a book club indicates strength in two skills simultaneously: intense personal focus and an ease with social interaction.  Writing book reviews is an expression of gratitude for the hours an author spends in creation, as well as an expression of our understanding of the text.  The support of public libraries and the practice of building “Little Free Libraries” reinforces the notion that literacy is a superpower and should be accessible to everyone, not just the wealthy.

The integrity of your forward momentum along these same strata is measured in the length (or height) of your TBR list.  It’s a badge of honor to build a personal library.  The awe, jealousy, and playful (and sometimes serious) competition that arises when conversation turns to TBR stacks is very real.  The bragging rights we share with an air of justified superiority for owning more books than our shelves can physically hold is often a visceral ambition.  Logic plays no part in the library “hoard” we covet.  It is simply a thing we must do.

Now Consider:

If our most potent comprehension of life; human nature, scientific exploration, expectation of integrity, practice of empathy, stability found in the rule of law, and the strength and humility found inside love all trace their foundations back to books… Doesn’t it also stand to reason that you may be judged as worthy or undeserving to enter whatever afterlife you believe in, based on the number of books you’ve read and what those lines on the page have brought you? 

If the human brain, heart, and spirit has been guided over thousands of years to look inside books to discover our secrets, reinforce our strengths, attend to personal and societal improvement, and remind us to keep lasting, peaceful attitudes for humanity… Doesn’t it follow that the guardian of whatever utopia you aspire to join, in your final stages of existence, would require that you submit your reading list to prove that you have been actively seeking the answers to these questions, and following through on the solutions?

I can easily imagine the questions the guardian might ask as they examined your reading list… “What did you learn from this title?” and, “How did your comprehension of this book change your understanding of yourself and those around you?” or, “What abstract from this book added to the cultivation of your character and your consideration of those you encountered?” or, “How did you see yourself mirrored in this book?”  Just like the SAT exams, your retention and internalization of the lessons, messages, and the growth you earned as you read through that list would be weighted, and a score developed, which would determine your eternal placement in the realms of good and evil.  Perhaps, if your reading list was not long enough, diverse enough, or if you did not find commonality with the teachings your list offered… You might be sent back to read more and continue your quest for utopian inclusion.  You’d be given another chance to read, learn, and grow.  Your next reading list would attempt to reinforce those areas that required a second look, so you’ll be better prepared for what spiritual immortality offers.

So perhaps take a moment to look over your reading list, and maybe add titles.  Stand down your indignant reply when another chides you for the books that remain, as yet, unread on your shelves, and lift up those around you who endeavor to read more.  Your soul just might be hanging in the balance.