Reading
Don’t ask me what reading is because I don’t know. Over the past two and almost-a-half decades of my life, it was a lot of different things to me.
Reading is a gleaming bubble of soap you can sink into, when the world around you is a heap of stinking sewage. The smell doesn’t hit you, the filth doesn’t reach you, and the flies buzzing around melt into the sound of the blood pounding in your ears.
Reading is a virtual-reality headset you can wear, specifically tailored to your beautiful, inexperienced neurons. It’s the next-best thing to actually being there.
Reading is a spaceship you can climb into, that will take you to the stars. The alien conductor can then announce on the spaceship speakerphone that it’s now okay to look back down at your life. That’s a view you’ll never get when you’re down there.
Reading is a mirror you can look into, and instead of seeing disappointment, you can be met with hope - or fantasy, depending on your level of cynicism.
Reading is a round-table conference of thorough geniuses, shouting at you until their voices go hoarse, usually drowned out by a cacophony of thoroughly mediocre minds, shouting louder still.
Reading is a boy you meet at school that you never fall out with, or fall for. He develops as you develop, he thinks as you think, and there is no schoolyard group to slide its tentacles in between.
If you got this far, reading is you wondering why I act so tough but think so sensitive.
Writing, on the other hand, is awful. Writing is a reminder you will never be as good as the best.
What is the point of it all, though? I scroll through recommendations on GoodReads, a website I just got into, and I’m met with a barrage of familiar names.
I read all these different books. I spent hours poring over them, in countries over the world, zoning out the dozen other languages being spoken around me, in every conceivable setting. I used to hold 1000-page books out in front of me (old school: before audiobooks, the internet, or e-readers), and walk down the street with my face buried in deep, expecting the world to part for me, like a nerdy Moses. And it did.
And now what of them do I remember? Did they help? I have no data, I have no idea.
Sure, if I sit next to a cute girl, I can flex. “I roughed it all throughout the Wild American West. I defended Albania from the Ottomans. I fought for Biafra’s independence. I crossed the border from India to Pakistan in ‘47. I left a trail of babies in the Dominican Republic. I meditated with the Buddha. I was even abandoned on Mars. I’ve been everywhere, you dumb bitch. So what if I’m blind without my glasses and have the second-worst passport in the world?”
After her, what then? I’m back alone, scrolling through the list. No idea what to read, no idea where to go. Books are the buckets I used to make my brain overflow with wisdom and knowledge, right? Not a time-pass. Not some empty activity. Definitely not a fucking identity like some people have made it.
Books are tools. Just tools. I don’t know how best to use these tools, but perhaps writing down a few words about everything I read will help me stay refreshed years down the line. They would have been helpful in rating Oliver Twist on GoodReads, at least.
Now, to think about how our changing nature over time means even the same book is never really the same… Oh, and if you’re wondering what was the point of all this, there was no point. That’s why it ends so abruptly.