Reading

I like reading, I really do. It's... nice. It's fun. It's distracting. It's liberating. It's a coping mechanism, and a escape mechanism, but more than anything it's pure pleasure. There are few things to me as enjoyable as picking up where I left off and making my way slowly through a novel. Or reading a newspaper article to take a break from work. Or reading poems aloud.

Reading has taught me a lot of what I know. If I couldn't read, I wouldn't speak English right now. I also wouldn't be able to understand French. I probably couldn't have studied Biochemistry, and I simply wouldn't know a lot of the random facts I've picked up through a lifetime of reading randomly.

I also really like shows. TV shows. And movies. I love movies. If I had to choose between never reading again and never watching a movie again, I would choose reading, but probably only because there's more and they occupy more time, and they have been more central to me. But I don't see many fundamental differences between the two media. They are different media, but in the end, they are ways of telling stories. And stories are what captivate us. Stories: they are how we communicate and how we think, and to a certain extent, how we think about our lives. Even in science, which people insist on calling "objective", we like stories. A good article has good evidence, but more than anything, it is readable and it has a good story.

It is common around these dates (the 23rd of April is Book Day in Spain, and all over Spain there are book fairs) to see a few articles or letters to the editor (there was one in "El País" today) about how great reading is and how parents should do more to make their children read.

I tend to agree with the sentiment. Reading is fantastic. It provides entertainment and escape. I was an only child and it provided hours of entertainment when there wasn't a neighbour or a cousin or someone around to play with. But every time these letters go on to say something along the lines of: "read, your children will imitate you, you'll be investing in their future" or, less subtly, "read so your children will imitate you, it will make them 'better'/'smarter'". I don't deny that reading is useful, and that literature is part of culture. But please, don't make your children read because "it will make them more cultured" or because it's "better than watching TV for so many hours a day". Maybe it will, and maybe it is, but these are not reasons to read. I know plenty of people who are smart, funny, intelligent and cultured who only read in class. Some of them listen to so much music that I can't compute how many hours they spend listening, others know more about movies or TV shows or whatever other hobby they have than I can even imagine remembering. A lot of them are brilliant, they can read and write perfectly, and they've just never found reading that interesting.

While I may think that not finding reading interesting is sad, because to me books have more to offer than almost anything else, "being cultured" or "it will make them smart" are not good reasons to get children reading. Children will read for the same reason that they will do anything else: because it's fun and interesting.

Parents who go on about how "good" reading is gets on my nerves. Who cares if it's good? Vegetables are good. School is good. Reading isn't "good". It's fucking amazing. It's fun. It's escape and fascination and hours upon hours of conversation with other readers. It's friends and family. It's inside jokes and getting references. Reading is as much part of my enjoyment of life as any other thing. I don't do it to be smart. Or to be cultured. Or because it's "what I should do". I do it because there's nothing else is worth my while more.