My family consists of many voracious readers.
Or so I’ve been told.
I don’t actually know. For I barely remember seeing any of them pick up a story to read.
One of my aunts insisted to me once that many of them had been book addicts for a long time . . . But they just grew out of it. Too many responsibilities; shifting priorities; and a general lack of time: All lead to them simply falling out of habit with reading.
I thought she was crazy.
I was fourteen at the time.
And now, like some twisted lesson from the universe, I one day found myself in the same boat . . .
I had been one of those girls who would finish a 600-page novel within a night or two; the girl who wouldn’t be seen at any spare moment without a story to read; the girl who forewent sleep and food without even noticing it when she had a book to devour; the girl whose parents feared bankruptcy because no matter how thick the novels were, or how many were bought in one go, it would be a very short time before she was pleading for more.
Well, I had been one of those girls.
Cue college; and I found myself drifting away from this cherished pass time. Sure, I still read. But I had too much on my mind to sink too often into pages. Life was calling, and it was a life I’d chosen. I couldn’t let it down. And so, I had to brutally cut short the time I spent reading – often not even buying any books in order to resist temptation.
But, in the process, before I realised it, the allure of reading became less clear to me.
It also didn’t help at all that, after a while, I started finding it increasingly hard to find a story or writing style that I actually liked anymore. All the stories became too predictable. I found myself figuring out the plot by the time I finished a chapter or two. And the writing styles were incredibly dry and felt like a pain to endure.
I tried getting recommendations from my friends and perusing critic reviews in order to get back into the habit; in order to find a book that would catch and hold my interest again . . .
I didn’t succeed.
Of course, I did consider it absurd: The idea that, with readers so spoilt for choice right now, I couldn’t find a single book that could capture my interest. All of the writers couldn’t be that bad. The problem was most likely with me.
However, whether it was absurd or not, that was my condition after I had gotten used to the new responsibilities and had time for reading again – and it is still the same even now (though, perhaps, marginally better).
The one thing that made it better though – the thing that filled my reading void – was a sudden love I developed for movies. It actually caught me by surprise – though I suppose it shouldn’t have. For you see, for me, it was never about the books or the words or gaining a collection. It was about the story.
Whether I got a great story by reading, listening or watching didn’t bother me – as long as I got a great story. That was why I had taken a media course in the first place; why “communication” was a prime factor in my life.
It was just that, before this phase of mine, reading books had been the most independent and effective way that I got good stories for a long, long time. And then, when that waned, I could suddenly see the other storytelling media I could indulge in, leading me to watch and re-watch and analyze movies in the same way I used to read books! 🙂
Now I know many out there will say that a movie can’t compare to a good book, and still others who would rather gag than pick up a book to read over a movie. But I’m not going to get into that debate. I love both, and I can defend both. But that isn’t what this post is about. It’s about loving things and understanding how it makes up different parts of your personality. It’s about how habits you wished to keep for a lifetime faded away without your permission. It’s about finding out that something you believed might actually have not been the whole story. It’s about knowing yourself and understanding that you’ll never really stop learning or growing or changing . . . and that, in spite of it, some things don’t really change at all . . .
. . . I love movies. I truly, emphatically do! . . . But I still wish I could read like I used to.
Written By A Moody Pen: WOLIWAIS Speech Bubbles! 