Reading

Last week's post was just a little bit melancholy. This week I was going to write about my views on the decline of American society, but hey, it's Christmas time- let's talk about something somewhat positive! This week's topic will be broad- I'll be talking about my rediscovery of the joy of reading.

I've been in love with reading ever since I learned how to do it in first grade. With many things in my life, I have to practice and repeat them over and over and over again to get them down to where I can do tasks semi-competently, but that was not so with reading. I remember sitting at one of those plastic white tables in first grade and practicing reading with one of the 8th graders. My school had this deal where every week the 7th and 8th graders would come to the first grade and help the younger kids practice reading books. I remember one day, as I struggled to grasp words and sentence structure, something just clicked! I suddenly figured out how to read, and it resulted in me coming home and rapidly devouring every book in the house.

I should tell you that my mother is a voracious reader. Some people have sports, others have movies, others have complex and intricate board games where you paint little metal figures and yell "For the Emperor!", but my mother has reading. If she has a spare minute, she's reading something. I've asked her how many books she reads in a year, and it is always in the hundreds.

So you can see that my mother considers reading extremely important, and once I figured out how to do it, she poured fuel on the metaphorical fires of my knowledge any chance she got. Before I could read, she and my father were constantly reading stories to me, and I enjoyed going to the library and picking out books. When I unlocked the power of scanning the words and comprehending them, she and my father were beside themselves.

As a child, my family was vehemently opposed to video games and cable television. Sure, I played the odd video game here or there at a friend's house, and I watched enough Rugrats and Johnny Bravo at my grandparent's house to avoid having the cultural awareness of an Amish child, but when I had spare time at home, one of my only options was reading. You may say I'm deprived for not being able to play the first Legend of Zelda or having an encylopedic knowledge of Ren and Stimpy, but I regret nothing! My consumption of books as a child has given me knowledge that I use even today.

An accurate depiction of my life as a child.

The great thing about my parents is that they didn't really censor me from reading certain kinds of books. Now this doesn't mean I was able to pour over "Game of Thrones" at 7 years old- I would have no interest of doing so anyway- I just wasn't prohibited from reading about sensitive topics. I grew up in an Evangelical Christian home, and I'm still a Christian today, but my parents encouraged me to check out books from the library about world religions, anatomy and biology, and history. I was fascinated in learning about how different cultures and people live across the world, and about the things that they believed in. I was always particularly fascinated in Hinduism and ancient Greek Myths as a child and read tens of books on each subject's pantheon. Many of the stories scared me-I remember reading one of those great Eyewitness books on Greek Myths and seeing a terrifying picture of Medusa being beheaded, and I wasn't able to sleep without thinking about it for a whole week. Fortunately, I came out ok. I checked out books on the great wars of humanity, and considered the Holocaust and read about the Conquistadors. Such things are not easy reading for a kid, but I was always able to ask my parents questions, and this lead to discussion which helped me grow.

Come to think of it, there was some weird stuff in Greek mythology...

My reading tastes began to mature as I got older. I read through all the Lord of the Rings books in 7th grade, and I clearly recall staying up way too late on a school night in wide eyed suspense as the fellowship braved the Mines of Moria, and feeling a sense of joy come over me as Frodo finally dropped the ring into Mt. Doom (Wow, a spoiler alert would have been nice). The Harry Potter series particularly overtook me, as I could relate to the character in many ways. When I read the first book in 6th grade, Harry and I were the same age. I was awkward, nerdy and was bullied a little bit at school, and Harry wen through the exact same things! I faithfully read the books until the climactic battle in the Deathly Hollows, and Harry and I grew up together. Isn't it amazing how we can feel camaraderie and affection for characters and people that don't even exist?

Somewhere along the way, my reading consumption slowed down. I bought a Playstation 2 at the end of 8th grade with graduation money I received, and books became a lower priority. That same year, my parents finally caved and got cable for the house after I had been without it for 14 years. I was glued to the T.V for hours at a time. My sophomore year of high school, high speed internet was installed in the home, and books had taken a virtual backseat. I read a book here or there, but didn't have the fervor I once had for it as a kid. I was sucked in to the technological wonders of the early 21st century, and it was going to be difficult to bring me back.

Me browsing YTMND circa 2005.

In college, I rarely read for fun. I read all my textbooks, and reading for pleasure was the last thing I wanted to do. Still, here or there, I read a book now and then. On summer breaks I would try to read more, and would always think "I need to make a habit of this". One of my fondest memories of the past couple years was when I read "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac during a student trip to Morocco. I read it on the plane ride over, on trains through chapparal landscapes, and in hotels located in maze like cities. The book really inspired me to travel as much as possible in life, and it definitely played a major part in my decision to take a road trip to California from Missouri this past summer with my brother. I know that every hipster person you know says it's one of their favorite books and it's referred to endlessly by English majors, but it really is worth a read if you haven't read it already. It will change the way you think about things-at least it did for me.

This past year, I made a committment to make a regular habit out of reading. I had been playing videogames, surfing Reddit for hours at a time, and watching countless hours of anime. All of these things are enjoyable, but I felt like I was missing a certain richness in my life. I missed spending hours with a cracked book on my knee and creating worlds in my head as my brain tried to put images to words.

That's what really got me back into books- I thought about how much more interactive it is to read a book than to watch a movie or play a videogame. When you read a story, it become very personal. You're conceptualizing scenery, the way characters look and the inner workings of how things tick! The author can go to as much detail as he prefers in describing what a character or building may look like, but in the end you'll get a vastly different picture of what Aragorn looked like compared to someone else who read the book. Your mind is constantly in action-it's a completely interactive experience that just isn't found in any other type of medium.

I also began to think about how important books are. I'm currently watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos series, and on the second episode he spends a lengthy amount of time talking about the astrological knowledge that was housed in the Library of Alexandria in ancient times. For those unfamiliar with the tragedy of the Alexandrian library, it was burned to the ground during some war or another, and thousands of scrolls were destroyed. The library's goal was to become a source for all the known information in the world at that time. Scholars speculate that there were accounts of history and insights into the past that mankind will never know due to the library's terrible destruction.Sagan goes on to discuss that there were scrolls in the library that accurately described how the planets move, but even those were lost. It took scientists hundreds and hundreds of years to figure it out again.

This was powerful for me to see. Books are the written account of all of man's knowledge-they are necessary. Millions of ideas, facts and processes are written down on them. Just think if all of that knowledge were lost again. Because of this, I have made it a priority to read as much as I can on philosophy, religion and science so that I can exercise my right to learn about these ideas. We're not living in an age where tyrants regularly set fire to libraries (at least in the Western world), and with the digitizing of information , it is unlikely that we'll ever fully lose anything again. But still, I think it's important that we exercise our right to read about ideas that have rocked nations and changed history.

So I've begun voraciously reading again. I'm curently reading through the "A Song of Ice and Fire" saga, and have been enjoying great apologetics books from the likes of Paul Copan and William Lane Craig. I have a book about traditional Japanese monsters I'm reading in between books, and I received about 5 more books for Christmas that I eagerly look forward to tearing into.

I can't describe the feeling of reading a truly excellent book- when you read, you're bettering yourself. Every book you read, no matter how vapid, exposes you to new ideas, themes and perspective that you otherwise might never have considered. They mature you and challenge you, and they make you wish to embark on a lifelong quest for knowledge. It's a terrifying and wonderful thought to know that I'll never know every piece of knowledge the world has- but I can sure try!

Have a wonderful New Years everybody, and if I might ask, what are some books that have really challenged you over the years?