Personal growth is not about shortcuts. In an age of instant advice and intellectual convenience, this essay argues that reading—like eating and climbing mountains—demands discernment, training, and responsibility. Drawing on cognitive science, literary theory, and thinkers from Belinsky to Maryanne Wolf and Seyyed Hossein Nasr, it explores why not all reading nourishes the mind, how literary “junk food” differs from deep nourishment, and why books still matter as a practice

Floods are not only natural disasters; they are the result of how we have reshaped rivers over centuries. Across Europe, confined channels and lost floodplains have turned water into a fast-moving threat, costing billions of euros each year. Against this backdrop, the return of the beaver offers an unexpected lesson. By slowing water, restoring wetlands, and giving rivers space, beavers act as natural flood-prevention infrastructure.

The Himalaya and the Alps are often referred to as the water towers of the world. Both mountain systems supply water to hundreds of millions of people downstream and act as natural regulators of the hydrological cycle. Yet these towers are now literally melting. Glaciers that for centuries functioned as slow and reliable natural reservoirs are rapidly losing mass. As a result, not only the quantity but, more importantly, the timing of water availability  is changing. Water is