reading matters

I’ve been a lifelong reader. The pleasure of a good book is one of my favorite things in the world. I love to lose myself in the world of a novel. To become best friends with a character. To curl up or snuggle up in the silence of the early mornings or late nights hours, wrapped in the deliciousness of a book. I think many people approach reading the wrong way – they try to force themselves to read and see reading a difficult and tedious chore. I see reading as a wonderful thing. Reading is a joy. A time of peace, of adventure, of exploration, of just enjoying a good story. It allows me to step inside other minds and understand the world from different points of view. Although, it is rather hard to accept the fact that the new digital revolution threatens the values of classic reading.

Reading is a basic life skill that most people take for granted. It unlocks remarkable powers. Imagine just for a moment that you cannot read the instructions on a bottle of prescription medicine or that you find it difficult to read the job adverts in the local paper. Reading is a great way of learning, that’s for sure. It is estimated that there are nearly 900 million illiterates in the world today -- and two thirds of them are women. Reading leads to literacy and literacy is the key to unlocking the cage of human misery; the key to delivering the potential of every human being; the key to opening up a future of freedom and hope.

I consider myself a dreadfully voracious reader. A bookworm. A bibliophile per se. I have this constant thirst for a far more genuine and revealing piece of writing. I enjoy reading literary and historical works as well as narrative yet stirring work of fictions. I read various types of genre - classic, contemporary, fictions, non-fictions, christian books and references, bestsellers, paperbacks, etc. I also find memoirs - accounts of a person’s life story and history interesting. I think such stories of life are very moving, empowering and inspiring. Agonizing at times and mostly the end of the story leave me marvels at the main characters, every details and significant turn of the events in their lives.

Obviously, I have a slight book obsession which is beyond cure. I read. I browse. I admire. I collect. I write reviews. I analyze. I let the book take me into a world. I learned to immerse myself in the world of a book, and forget about the world around me. This is related to being in the moment, or finding the state of flow — time seems to disappear, and nothing else exists but my book. For me, I discover and nurture the joy of reading, I treat it as a voluntary thing, a hobby, a passion. It is a wholesome and healthy activity too and it is good for you. But if you treat it like a chore, it will feel like one.

How do I discover the joy of reading? Well, I start by finding amazing books first. If a book bores me, I move on to another. And one thing important detail that matters when reading, look at the things that surround you, beyond the book itself – where you sit, how quiet, how comfortable you are because you want your experience to be more pleasurable as possible.

Reading really is important, and that there are some solid reasons why that is so. There are practical benefits and less tangible rewards of a life filled with reading. Personally, reading matters to me because - I discover. I explore. I understand. I gain knowledge. I learn. I unravel things. My passion for reading is not just for constant continuous learning but most of all for enjoyable experience too.