Rajesh Jain shared why he reads. One quote:
There is something magical about a book, which can never be replicated by any of the other media — be it magazines, the Web or television. A book does not let us do multi-tasking. It demands undivided attention — there are no micro-moments. A book consumes our most precious resource — time. When we read a book, we are committing a significant chunk of mental time and attention that is the hardest to find in today’s multiplexed lives.
Amen. I know some people can read and listen to the radio or watch TV or otherwise do more than one thing at a time while (ostensibly?) reading. I’m not one of them. Time with a book is undivided. It’s time for me. It’s private, not public. It’s one of the truly selfish pleasures that I still make time for as a working adult and parent. Reading doesn’t take much mental or physical energy, which is good after a busy day. I do find that consuming, rather than producing (even light blogging, like this), occasionally feels like a shortcut, since it’s easier to read than to write. But public creation feeds a different part of my self. Reading smooths out my rough mental edges.
A tangent: while I think writing well takes much more than just reading, I believe that incessant reading builds a personal measuring tape of just what is good writing. At one point I thought I wanted to be a journalist. I did the usual routine (school paper) in high school and even in college for a bit. But after college, working at The Atlantic Monthly, I realized more than ever what it took to write well for a living. It wasn’t a fit. I do work with those who have made the commitment to public writing. I enable their efforts, and I admire their work, but I limit my own visible words to this space.