Another silly debate tournament essay...
For the Love of Reading
I read because I'm lonely. Or I'm lonely because I read. Either way, I read. But I think that's it- love of reading, is love of loneliness. They're inseparable companions, maliciously and bitterly in love. Mutual in every way possible.
"Oh, but you can read a book out loud to others."
Yeah, you can. But what you experience is not what I experience. Reading a book to others is like reaching a hand to grasp to the top of an infinite bookcase, trying to get the one book you've been dying to read. Neither you, or the author will reach your audience the way that you intended. People always think what they think, or what they want or need to think. That won't change just because you use use your voice to speak rather than paper.
"Oh, but you can talk about the book to each other."
This is besides the point. To talk about reading and to read are two very different things. To talk about a book is to reflect on what has happened or will happen in whatever pages you were and will read from. Talking about reading , I think, is very much like talking about sex and actually having it. Not that I actually know the difference. What I mean is that to experience, and to reflect, are two very different things that sound the same, but never are.
"Oh but... I don't want to be lonely."
No one does. But we all are. Have you noticed how we all have our own little inner monologues going on in our heads? That inescapable voice that just has to keep saying something? The same voice that illuminates how fun it is to kiss, the same voice that ruminates how painful it is to miss... It is both a blessing and a curse being human.
The blessing is that you always have somebody to talk to: you. The curse is that the only person you ever really talk to is ultimately... yourself. No matter how carefully you listen to someone...those vibrations happen in your ear, are processed in your brain, are interpreted in your own mind... by the time you're done listening, what you got from that person is what you got from that person...and not what they were trying to give you.
This same paradox applies to reading. I read because I am lonely. Or I am lonely because I read. Either way, I read. If everything I experience is ultimately what I, and me alone, me alone in the whole wide world of billions of people, me alone, experience... then I really have only one thing left to love. Myself. And if I love myself, I love loneliness. And if I love loneliness, I love reading.
Reading is not an escape from the world, it's facing the vary nature of existing in the world head-on. The world is lonely, and so are you, sitting in your bedroom reading your book. The world is lonely, and so are you, talking to the girl you like at a party. The world is lonely, and so are you, delivering odd speeches to people who you hope might just understand.
It's all just... for the love of reading.
For the Love of Reading
I read because I'm lonely. Or I'm lonely because I read. Either way, I read. But I think that's it- love of reading, is love of loneliness. They're inseparable companions, maliciously and bitterly in love. Mutual in every way possible.
"Oh, but you can read a book out loud to others."
Yeah, you can. But what you experience is not what I experience. Reading a book to others is like reaching a hand to grasp to the top of an infinite bookcase, trying to get the one book you've been dying to read. Neither you, or the author will reach your audience the way that you intended. People always think what they think, or what they want or need to think. That won't change just because you use use your voice to speak rather than paper.
"Oh, but you can talk about the book to each other."
This is besides the point. To talk about reading and to read are two very different things. To talk about a book is to reflect on what has happened or will happen in whatever pages you were and will read from. Talking about reading , I think, is very much like talking about sex and actually having it. Not that I actually know the difference. What I mean is that to experience, and to reflect, are two very different things that sound the same, but never are.
"Oh but... I don't want to be lonely."
No one does. But we all are. Have you noticed how we all have our own little inner monologues going on in our heads? That inescapable voice that just has to keep saying something? The same voice that illuminates how fun it is to kiss, the same voice that ruminates how painful it is to miss... It is both a blessing and a curse being human.
The blessing is that you always have somebody to talk to: you. The curse is that the only person you ever really talk to is ultimately... yourself. No matter how carefully you listen to someone...those vibrations happen in your ear, are processed in your brain, are interpreted in your own mind... by the time you're done listening, what you got from that person is what you got from that person...and not what they were trying to give you.
This same paradox applies to reading. I read because I am lonely. Or I am lonely because I read. Either way, I read. If everything I experience is ultimately what I, and me alone, me alone in the whole wide world of billions of people, me alone, experience... then I really have only one thing left to love. Myself. And if I love myself, I love loneliness. And if I love loneliness, I love reading.
Reading is not an escape from the world, it's facing the vary nature of existing in the world head-on. The world is lonely, and so are you, sitting in your bedroom reading your book. The world is lonely, and so are you, talking to the girl you like at a party. The world is lonely, and so are you, delivering odd speeches to people who you hope might just understand.
It's all just... for the love of reading.
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