Photo by Maurizio Abbate/flickr.com
I just read in one of my textbooks that only three percent of young people between the ages of 18 and 25 spend their time reading for leisure.
In truth, that really horrifies me!
I dread missing the fact that I haven’t read a book that’s thrilled me, scared me (just a tad), and left me swooning (over the main character, as well as the phenomenal ending).
Though it’s understandable that our work takes up so much of our time with reading textbooks and educational sites, in addition to actually doing our written homework and researching, reading for pleasure should not be sidelined to “just a waste of time.”
Reading for pleasure is very useful.
It does vastly improve your vocabulary (yup, the English professors weren’t just tooting their own horns).
It provides you with different angles for forming opinions, nourishes and enriches your appreciation for this changing world and it’s a beautiful activity for escapism from the trenches of everyday life.
As a lover of reading, I find it devastating that the pursuit of knowledge is stampeding all over the pursuit of imagination in a way.
At the age of seven, I began devouring novels, magazines and newspapers, anything written as a form of expression and capable of giving me a different perspective on my own world. I discovered how important and how enlightening it is to read.
I didn’t read for the sake of reading, but because it helped form my identity.
I not only received the social and cultural influences of my current society, but also cultural knowledge.
With our lives filled with stress or mundaneness, oftentimes buckling under intense pressure, it always feels like we’re attached to a ticking clock.
It’s hard to find a way to give one’s mind the freedom to relax and break from the periodically confining spheres of educational reading.
Exercise and hanging out with friends are great sources of relaxation (and bucketfuls of laughter); nevertheless, it’s also calming to participate in activities that provide us with our own personal space in a way that only reading can do.
It’s a dying art, and its death is as tragic as the loss of all life, for within its death goes an inspiring and globally influential part of our culture.
It has become the phoenix that may never resurrect, never again set the world ablaze with wonder, truth, values, boundless joy and unification.
I don’t want to see it go for it has much to offer to us as UT students.
So, the next time you’re looking for something to do just to relax and rejuvenate, pick up that book you left on the shelf a couple of weeks ago.
I guarantee there’s something glorious waiting in those pages for you!
Philippa Hatendi can be reached at phatendi@ut.edu.
