What would books be without readers? Will books still be written if there are no one to read them? Still, imagine a world where no one reads, what's the important of writing then? When there are no any way to received, will man still seek to express? Beyond such a metaphysical questions, it's fascinating how the concept of reading has been changed since over the last decades.
A while ago, we had that exquisite time to curl up on sofa with a book just be lost in a new world that brings to us. There was no mobile ringing near your heart. There was no need of updating a status message on whatsapp. No profile photos to upload on facebook for likes and comments. And there was any absolute reason to tweet saying "Brilliant.. #Adultery... #NowReading." You were content with your inner "you" interacting silently with the character from the book you read. It was just between only you and your book. Yes, at time, you might hear you mom shouts at you "Adiye neraaa utkarnthu padi deee". And at most of the time, you didn't know what the food you ate and what it tasted like, caught in conversation between your beloved character.Well, that was a greatest pleasure you had the privilege of enjoying. Personally, I'm grateful for that. This has given me the power of understand the emotion, complicated and contradictory. The layers to what a person thinks, says and does, all revealed in beautiful writing, which I had the time to delve into.
Fast forwarding to this era now, every minute, there seems to be an overload of matters to be catch up on Twitter, Facebook, Quora. One seems to be in an urgent need to digest the information that bombard from multiple directions. In many ways, I see the similarities with the reading and listening. Once upon a time, we know how to keep quite and be completely silent, when the speaker do his talking. We learn this technique from the long hours with our books. Now it seems so hard for someone to listen to a long talks. The pressing need to comment, critique and opine instantly, exert tremendous pressure on your head.
A hurried world, indeed! From 1000 pages novel to 1000 words short stories to 144 characters of tweets. Our attention spans have shrunk to XSS size. Perhaps, a day will come when future humans will consider even those tweet readers have a phenomenal patience. Perhaps, they will use more short words and emoticons. I will never be surprise if emoji is the years word in Oxford Dictionary, and it isn't too hard to imagine the future. Still, what a loss! Everything seems to be superficial and transient, no matter how much information I received in a day, and how much we are updated. Deep reflections are fading too fast. I miss those days where i could attach myself with one book and forget the world I'm in now, and observing another one, creating a landscape and mindscape in my own mind.
