Just Like Breathing

I was corresponding with an acquaintance recently, and he asked what I had read lately.  As I was going through the list with him, he interrupted and said, "Whoa! You must have lots of free time on your hands.  I don't have time to read like that." I laughed, remembering that this person didn't know me very well.  I simply answered," I can't not read. For me, reading and writing are just like breathing."  And so it is.

On any given day, I'll read parts of two or three novels, pieces of several non-fiction books, a newspaper, email, twitter, Facebook posts, and a wide variety of articles and essays. It's not a hardship or something I struggle to do.  I do it just because. I do it because it just feels like the right thing to do.  Like breathing.

George R.R. Martin wrote, "The mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone."  Without a whetstone, a sword becomes dull and, eventually, useless. The same thing happens to the mind without reading...at least that's how it is for me.

I can't imagine a life without reading. I can feel my brain begin to atrophy if I'm forced to cut back on my reading for a day or two due to social events or work (fortunately, my work requires that I read and write a lot). I find my connection to most of the rest of humankind in the written word. That doesn't mean I don't socialize or enjoy conversation, but that there is a depth of understanding that I can process best through the written word. My closest relationships have been developed at some point in the relationship through writing (letters or email or shared journaling).

And just as breathing requires inhaling and exhaling, feeding fully on the written word usually involved both taking it in (reading) and letting it out (through writing or conversation) after it has gone through me, nourished me, changed me in some way. I could no more keep it all inside without sharing it than I could hold my breath forever.

Knowledge and wisdom are meant to circulate among us - like air.

And that circulation sustains me.

-------------------------------------------

Read more A Writer's Journey.