Why do you Read?
Do you read to learn? Or do you read simply to escape daily life? Here’s why you should think about it!
How many books are you done with yet? How many have you finished? I, for one, have not ‘finished’ a single book this year. I am not done, never done with any book that I have read yet. Not anymore, at least.
“Done”, “Finished” and “Completed”. These words, I have observed, dominate the circle of readers, both online and offline. Many of us focus on finishing or completing books rather than actually reading them. So much so that it has become a staple. Our reading habits revolve around it. We spend a lot of time trying to reach our reading goals that a lot of good books that could potentially change the world and ourselves are treated merely as numbers.
Do they, however, deserve to be treated so? Does a book or any piece of art, for that matter, deserve to remain a number? Do the creators and artists deserve to be called creators of merely a certain number of artistic pieces that we add to our list of completed/finished texts?
I realized that after I started a bookstagram (follow me @thebiblioraptor for Instagram for posts and reels that don’t make it to my blog) account of my own that I too started reading to just finish a certain number of books. I used to be really serious about the Goodreads Reading Challenges, until I read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods in 2020, over a period of a month and a week, savouring it, enjoying every flavor, finding and getting comfortable with my own pace. I have never gone back to merely finishing a book ever since. I am so very glad that I did.
Also, my question is, can one be ever really done with a book? I, for one, have never been able to do that, even when I actually read to simply finish a book. A book that I have read always occupies a space in a corner of the mind that it has claimed as is own. It stays. Always. Numerous books that I have gifted off or given away, I have done them only because I am never done with them and they deserve to do that to others too, those who deserve it.
Since I put up a question here, it’s natural that I should propose an answer too!
Reading, for the lack of a better term, a book is a lifelong or is simply, a really long process; where you might complete reading the book in a span of hours, days or months, you might re-read and contemplate over it for a lifetime and it will still not be enough. (Note that I speak of completing/finishing reading a book, not finishing/being done with a book altogether.)
Being a reader and being a learner is not a case of choosing fiction over non-fiction or vice versa, but reading with or without a certain goal in mind (which is not merely finishing a book). Again, neither is a bad thing. Reading as a hobby and using it as an escape to comfort yourself is as important as reading to collect information for a research paper.
Now by this, I mean to make clear two things that might look quite contradictory at first glance:
First, keeping a hobby as a hobby is just as good and is also much needed. Consume art freely and don’t let the muggles get you down. Enjoying art and literature as, what Aristotle calls, the “ideal audience” is to enjoy it as it is meant to be.
Second, reading with a goal in mind is important if your reading is centred on learning something out of the text that you intend to study. When you know (vaguely, at least) what you want out of your book, it helps you read more effectively.
Now, the two statements are not contradictory (or maybe they are) but are directed at two different groups of people and to those who often forget, as I do too, that any form of art is meant to be consumed for pleasure first and only then for analysis. It is such a that people like me can no longer be consumers of art without judging and comparing it to some other work of art and/or draw conclusions. But if you are able to enjoy art without much critical thought, you are blessed with the power to see it as it is. Nothing more, nothing less. And that is great news.
Just a reminder: Read not to increase your numbers, to finish or to be done with a book. Read to actually read. Read to learn. Read to find, be and stay yourself.
If you enjoyed reading this article and would like to motivate me to do more such posts, you can buy me a coffee or follow me on my social media profiles. Also, do consider following me on Medium too.
Thank you, and see you next time.
