Perspective

Most of my childhood I had spent in solidarity. I learned to entertain myself with toys, riding my bicycle around the house in a confined space, and watching all the cartoons I possibly could. Many try to engross themselves in books having such a childhood. My dad had this obsession with buying books, not many fiction novels but mostly general knowledge, DIY books, magazines, etc. Though surrounded by a vast catalog of books I never really felt like reading any. Except glancing through the numerous car magazines just for the pictures. I despised reading books, the number of textbooks and especially English literature books sufficed the need to read a book. Ironically, I was made a bookkeeper during my 7th grade for the class library. Though I never read any of them I used to get. The only books other than textbooks I remember reading were the Harry Potter series. Why? The Hype.  Most of my family enjoyed reading books but I never did. 

Even up until my teenage years, textbooks were enough to fill my desks. But certain situations in life changed my perspective on books. I went into a frenzy after my teen years. I read close to 15 books in a span of a few months. I had no other purpose to serve during those days, planning for the future, all my friends were busy in their daily routines, and all I found were books around. So I kept reading and reading to entertain myself, to keep myself occupied. After that momentary spike in my enthusiasm, I got back to my good old habits. An occasional book never harmed me. But lately, I have been back on that frenzy as the situations seem to have turned around just like an hourglass flipped.

It got me thinking, why do I have these kinds of timelines? The first thought was solitude. Loneliness. Reading scripts written by others actually puts you in your imagination, and keeps your mind at work, and thoughts away. It is my own personal world of imagination and visualization. Kind of "ME TIME". You could sit and watch a movie together with somebody, but sitting together and reading a book, is never the same. You encapsulate yourself to think and understand which can never be on the same frequency as another individual. That was my second thought. Life is never the same for two individuals. There would be casual readers, some would try to create their own imagination and engross themselves in a book, and some may follow a book by the word and change their lifestyle or way of thinking. It triggers one's own thoughts. Some may read a book in a day, and some may take an eon to finish the same book. Life never runs at the same pace for everybody too. 

A room without books is like a life without a soul.

  -Cicero

These thoughts have changed the way I perceived reading a book. I prefer a book as a gift over anything now. And I prefer doing the same to others. Reading gives the main art or knowledge of thinking that lacks in this age of the social media world. I am about to finish my 12th book this year, the last part of the Shiva Trilogy. Just grab a book and I am sure you would relate to this post. 

-Sushant Thotakura