“When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.” – Maya Angelou
The pleasure of reading is unprecedented, it not only acquaints you with the reality of the world but also transports you to another realm that transgresses the mundanity of everyday life. The concept of reading in today’s day and age has changed its course. We have come a long way from sitting in the library for hours to reading on a tablet while traveling. But the question remains has the essence of reading survived this change? And is it reduced to a recreational activity or something that renders intellectual stimulation?
With all the technological advancements making their way into our lives, no realm of our lives remains unaffected. With tablets, kindles and other e-readers making their way into our lives, the mileage that physical books carried is now being reassessed. While travelling in public transport, we often find our fellow passengers glued to their screens, be it a phone, laptop or a kindle. Although these devices have made our lives so much simpler, what about the simpler times when our world did not revolve around these devices? The pleasure of opening a book and the warmth that it exudes stands nowhere close to the experience of reading an e-book. No doubt ebooks offer the convenience of reading in the dark and multiple books at once, without having to lug their weights on your shoulder, but as soon as the battery of the e-reader drains, it becomes obsolete. The convenience of reading anywhere and anytime is rendered counterintuitive, because you will always find yourself constantly charging the device. With changing trends and new devices flooding the market every day, the pleasure of reading an e-book is ephemeral and transmutes into oblivion as soon as your device dies. But with physical books, this isn’t the case. Textbooks carry with themselves stories and legacies that go beyond what is written in the text. Every marking you make, every phrase you highlight will remain with you forever and its meaning will evolve as you do. So a textbook grows old with you. It absorbs your experiences, your personality within those yellow-tinted pages. On the other hand, an e-reader will grow old only to be rendered obsolete.
Work is Worship 