by John Graham

Created on: October 30, 2008

I have never thought of reading as a hobby' and rarely have I used it as an escape.'

The human being is a thinking animal. That's what separates a human from all other animals. All animals eat, sleep, exhaust waste, and react to experience, but a human being also thinks. Thus, the human's accumulation of knowledge for use is as natural to a human as lifting a leg against a tree is to a dog. A child from his first day accumulates knowledge, first by exploration through all its senses and then, as it becomes adept at the deciphering of symbols, by reading.

Thus reading is not a hobby or an escape it's part of a human being's discovery, especially in this day and age.

However, many people read no more than headlines and a few snippets of news. Many homes I visit show no trace of books. A library of references and new acquisitions is almost a thing of the past. This paucity of reading reflects badly on how the population thinks in this day and age.

A friend proclaimed that he reads every day but it turns out that he just reads blogs on his computer. He is unknowing perhaps that people, who do not read and, therefore, don't have much ability to think, produce and contribute to blogs. Blogs are worse than the blind leading the blind. Blogs are an example of the ignorant leading the ignorant.

But to get back to reading read this sentence, written by John Steinbeck in "East of Eden." He is describing the night and all those creatures that inhabit the night.

"And over all the shadowy screech owls sailed, drawing a smudge of fear below them on the ground."

The smudge of fear' brings to mind the dark smudge of dirt across a face and it alludes simultaneously to what disaster has happened and what disaster might still happen. The image is masterly.

Thus, to read Steinbeck, or Dylan Thomas, is not to escape' but to learn the art of allusion and what we really feel even though we cannot put it into words as Steinbeck does.

However, reading such writing means doing a little more than speed-reading a line or bumbling through acronyms and what passes as text' in the electronic media. In that way you might, at best, simply notice the reference to screech owls.' True reading means reading each word slowly, and even perhaps reading again, to discover the whole meaning that the writer wants to convey. Then, perhaps one will know a little more about the night, about screech owls, about threat and pain, and about writing.

Thus reading is neither a hobby nor an escape. If we didn't read we would be less of being human.

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