Like everyone else, I don’t really understand the question. I read to educate myself, expand my mind, and all that jazz, but mostly i read just because I love it so. And because I am an addict. If I don’t read something for a few days, I feel myself thinking about going to the library, and missing reading.
Reading has this over TV & movies - and I watch plenty of movies - in movies, you are simply watching the images on the screen. You are enjoying the vision they have created for you. Fine, no problem, it’s an awesome image (or not, as the case may be.)
But in reading you have to create your own image, and to me I can dream up better things than have ever been shown on TV.
Because reading is more concentrated than movies or TV. That’s why the average book is two or three times longer than the average movie script.
Plus, there is a much wider selection. There are millions of books available to me, but the average TV evening is seventeen different sitcoms, most of which suck.
It’s comforting, exhilarating, interesting. I am intensely interested in other people, in how their minds work, and how they view the world. And in other times and places, in experiences I’ll never have. Reading is conversation with hundreds and thousands of people- with some of the best minds in history, speaking directly to me- or chats with comfortable friends, or debates by people I don’t agree with but find interesting.
Reading is community, friendship, conversation, argument. It’s wonderful.
For me reading is a great way of relaxing. I am getting away from the PC screen and can dive into another world. Reading is really important for me and it helps to keep my mind working.
I once overheard a male neighbour pontificating to his partner in the garden one sunny day, while guzzling a few beers.
To sum up his dialogue, his thoughts went something like this - “I fuckin hate reading and any cunt who wastes time reading. Everything i fuckin know, i have taught myself. Who needs fuckin books?”
Reading is a compulsion for me. If there is a written word within my field of vision, I’ve read it, and I’m probably reading it again. I bring a book with me almost everywhere; it is almost as important as my wallet. If I forgot my book, I’m reading posters, advertisements, the crawler at the bottom of the tv, the backs of cereal boxes, the label on the jelly jar, etc. I just can’t help it.
When I was a teenager, my stepdad once “grounded” me from reading. It turned out to be utterly impossible to comply with or enforce, so he had to give it up.
That pretty much sums it up for me. I have multiple stashes at home and work, and a book on CD in the car. Whenever I sit down at the computer, it’s hard not to pull up something to read before getting down to whatever it is I need to be doing.
I read on my exercise bike. It really makes the time wizz by. I tried watching TV, but that just didn’t cut it for me. So I guess you could say I read for my health!
I read because my mother taught me to read before I started kindergarten. I was indoctrinated with a love of reading, an obsession almost. If I don’t have a book to read I get twitchy. When I’m coming to the end of a book I have to know what book I will read next.
I read because, to quote Dr. Seuss, oh the places I’ll go. I have been to outer space. I have been to Rome. I have been on a pirate ship. I have been in prehistoric times. I have fought battles, made love, killed enemies, and foaled horses. I have opened fashionable boutiques, I have lost all my money. I have fled Sherman and fought monsters.
Some books are trash. But the ones that are good, I will treasure and read over and over again.
In short, I read because to me, reading is as essential to life as breathing.
To meet people, go places, and experience things vicariously that I couldn’t firsthand.
To expose myself to new ideas and exercise my mind.
To learn about things that interest me or that might be helpful to know, in my work, my relationships, or my daily life (including how the world works, what makes people tick, etc.).
To be challenged, encouraged, comforted, stimulated, and entertained.
To practice seeing the world from a different point of view.
Because I have lots of books on my shelf (and on my Amazon wish list) that I really want to read.
Because it’s fun. And, unlike some fun activities, it leaves me in some small way enriched or better off.
:smack: