I’ve been asked in the past this question; what is reading for you? Well reading for me is everything in more ways that one can imagine.
I didn’t always enjoy reading and found it quite boring in my younger years. Id pick up a book and would find it boring on the first chapter or even less. I started reading on the summer of 8th grade. My dad had taken me to the library and there I found books. I thought it might be a good idea to start reading to better my English knowledge. You see, English isn’t my first language and neither was I born in an English speaking country. I came to the United States when I was 10 years old and only speaking Spanish. Living in miami it isn’t easy to learn English as almost everyone speaks Spanish and rather speak that to English. But even when I was so little I had strong convictions that this country was an English speaking country and I wanted to better myself.
So on that summer of 8th grade I picked up my first children’s book. I started off with very small and simple books while in school I learned to speak, read and write English better. As my English started getting better my reading level upgrade until the point that by 9th or 10th grade I was reading at a college level. I was finally reading full sized books with words I sometimes didn’t even know!
So the first thing reading did was teach me English. After that it was to escape in different worlds.
Despite not having any issues with my life or anything truly drastic, in my opinion, I wasn’t a happy teenager as most teenagers aren’t. I wasn’t the type to have friends or really hang out with me. I was always a lone wolf and preferred my company to others. I can’t say that has changed even now as an adult. I can be very socially awkward at times but I’m good at hiding it. I’ve also always had a bit of... what someone once said it’s an existential crisis. I see very little reason to exist and always question why we came to be and what our purpose in this world is. I still have not found an answer to my questions and might never do. So I used reading to escape those thoughts. I’d get transported to the world in my books and for one moment forget my own world. Everything would become background noise and time didn’t even exist. I’d stay up until really late just reading and saying I’d go to bed after the next chapter. I’d ignore everything around me for my reading, even my friends, family and partners. The world in my books in recent years has become everything for me. My obsession, my salvation and my doom. People argue “reading is very good for you and will only bring good”. Reading can be fine if you don’t forget everything because of it. I now spend most of my time reading, at work, at home, stopped at a traffic light, eating, doing #1 and #2, getting ready to head out for work or outing, while watching TV and even while playing video games. I love naps and sometimes I think they are a waste because it means I can’t read some more.
Im very into martial art novels nowadays and they are sooo much longer than regular books and some even take months to finish. Months of me constantly reading and ignoring everything and everyone around me. Even people that love reading don’t seem to understand me. Even they don’t ignore everything around them or spend their time daydreaming about the book while they aren’t reading. But I do.
To answer the initial question... reading is my life and my obsession. No one and nothing can compete against it.
