The Written Word

A single book can change our lives, our dreams, our aspirations.  It can show us things in our imagination that we’d never been capable of seeing.  When we read a book, we are seduced by a world where intangible things have the power to mold who we are and what we believe in.  No single book has the power to change who we are permanently, but they all have the ability to re-shape our ideas and conceptions throughout the course of our lives.  The only requirement is that our minds be open enough to allow their words to cast these spells on us, spells that may only be temporary as we grow older.     

The miracle of reading is that the author takes us on a roller-coaster of thoughts that span the entire realm of the cosmos.  Great chapters are similar to moving speeches: their soliloquies take us on journeys to places we've never been; and, being without any of the interruptions of shared communication, for once allow us to escape from our heads and let the possession of another’s evolve the matrices of our minds.  While the conceptions in our heads may not be identical to the author’s, each individual conception of the same story or idea is like a never-ending cycle of creation.  Each of these conceptions are like little stars on a big black night, glowing with delight among the darkness of despair and ignorance.  They may appear to be the same from a distance, but from up close they are subtly different in ways that define the type of star they are.  Our reason for interpreting a piece of literature (and all art, for that matter) the way we do is largely dependent on the environment we were raised in.  It can also be due to pre-conceptions about what we already know or believe.  Therefore, every star in the universe of a book's pages can be likened to being born out of the interstellar dust that is generated by the minds reading it.   

Reading requires patience, concentration, and a genuine interest in the subject being read about.  When we are spoon-fed what to read, whether by our parents or our teachers, then the words spill off the page, drained by tears of boredom.  We should never be told what to read; we should be allowed to choose for our own pleasure, or else the words won’t stick in our minds and our opinion of literature will be tarnished.  The greatest minds the world has ever produced were minds that explored the written word with ceaseless abandon.