Falling on the death anniversary of world's most read and enacted writer William Shakespeare, the World Book Day was first observed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on 23rd April in 1995. The idea was to promote reading, publishing and copyrighting in the international community.
The calamity of a world pandemic has brought us to live a life, previously un-imaginable to the modern man: living in the isolation of our homes, consuming commodities only absolutely necessary for survival and subsistence, and engaging with our truest passions; 2020 has been revolutionary in teaching man what is and isn't of real value to it.
However, the lessons taught to us in the past few weeks call for another introspection. Today let's discuss one of the few ways to procrastinate it. Reading.
There is no end to the list of reasons why one should read : to teleport to distant lands and distant periods of time, to understand the minds of different humans, to know about something we love or are passionate about or simply to escape our own lives.
Surely, movies, TV and Web-series, etc., do the same. But let me tell you something why books are much better and why reading will mostly weigh-off watching.
Firstly, you're just provided with words in a text, descriptions and narrations are written and not told or brought to life on a screen. The process of painting the story in front of your eyes is your own job. This gives you the opportunity to fill in the outline of the author's sketch with your own strokes of imagination and sub-consciously, your mind draws more from the layers of personal experience than you'd think. As a result, the amplitude of emotions felt at each turn and twist of events is heightened and deeply internalized into our conscious memory.
Secondly, the amount of time we spend with the characters in their space-time-setting is fairly longer than any cinematographic adaptation or enactment. This gives us the room to widen our interaction with these albeit fictional humans and their experiences. Consequently, the range of learning and impact is greater. Even when you're binge-reading, this remains true.
Finally, a book is a material possession. There is something oddly surreal and fulfilling in holding a story or a lifetime of an individual in your hands, in a physical form and fleet through its pages, one at a time. You can smell the binding, you can see stains of tear-drops as readers before you might have stopped and wept, you can underline the parts that made you think so that the person reading after you knows it's something you valued enough, and above all it's a time-less piece of art that will live on, even when you won't.
So I hope, you might feel motivated today to pick a book, any genre or author, and re-kindle your romance with this illusive interesting art-form. If you want suggestions on where to read and what to read, free or paid, drop your comments and I'll reply as soon as possible. Thank you for your time. Hope you have a great day and please share the post, if you find some value in it. Thanks, again!
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