READING : MORE THAN JUST A WORD, MORE THAN JUST AN ACTIVITY

 

Have you ever heard of the quote, "You take something for granted and you regret it later, but it will never come back to you because you did not respect it in the first place?" How many times do I think we take books for granted? I have read somewhere, "So many books, so little time."

But the question is not about books precisely but how much time we give those books on our shelves and wondering when this person will read us. Just imagine One day, your books will start speaking to you about how they feel and how they want us to treat them. I think some people treat books like bank documents, which are of no use, but we pass them on to another counter or tell people to come after lunch; we are closed now.

Are you alive? I am here among your other books.

I imagined that one day, if books start talking and telling stories, there will be a lot of storytellers, podcasts, motivators, Free Lancers, and god knows what else. But at some point, books hold a lot more secrets than people themselves.

As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and a still considerable, though not so extensive, investment of time to read. And books are never found by a person, or they're printed, like the Gutenberg Bible. I often think of the percentage of people who read books.

And I came with a very good question. What if we pass on a book we all like to a non-reader and, after a week, ask them about a review or to create an imaginary story related to the book? This cycle will go on. But the thought of what if this stops and one stops passing it scares me.

 

But the question arises: Why should one read?

There is a series of postcards by the Dutch cartoonist Joost Swarte that apply the alarmist tone usually reserved for smoking to scenes of people reading. A sunbathing woman is going purple, and the caption, set in black on white with a black border, says: "Reading causes ageing of the skin."

Somehow, during those periods of time, so many lost track of their own lives, and it makes me think. What is the activity that keeps them engaged in something good? And the only thing I think of is reading. I have a special word. I call it my way of starting to read "WREMBLER."

W: WRITE SOMETHING (QUOTE, A GOOD MEMORY, ETC.)

R: READ IT EVERYDAY

E: EXPLORE THINGS RELATED TO THOSE MEMORIES

M: MANAGE YOUR TIME

B: BUY A BOOK OR STORY

L: LEARN SOMETHING FROM IT AND WRITE IT DOWN

E: EMBRACE WHAT YOU LEARNED

R: RECONSTRUCT YOUR OWN STORY AND READ IT

Isn’t it amazing that we can make our own words and define them in our own way? I have heard a story that there is a place 10 kilometres away from Almora called Chaundandas. Five years ago, a man gave a radio to a village, and every evening at 6.30 PM, they sat there and listened to the news and farmer information. But one day the radio stopped, and they tried every possible way to fix it but failed. But it had become a tradition by then to sit there. So they decide to tell each other stories. So, every day, somewhere at 6.30, people are telling each other stories.

It’s like walking into a library and having books start talking, isn’t it? Reading is just like listening to someone’s story and learning and growing in a certain direction.

A lot of things will be better if people start to read books and journals.

• It keeps your brain active and protects you from Alzheimer's and dementia.

• No matter how much stress you have in your daily life, it all just slips away when you lose yourself in a great story.

• It improves your knowledge power and your vision of the world.

• Your vocabulary will expand in a great way. A word a day keeps your vocabulary great.

It will also improve your memory.

"Sometimes we just have to grab a book, make a coffee, sit in a peaceful place, and just read and see what your book has to tell you."

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