Reading as an Antidote
By: Halima Abdullahi Achida
“The foundation of an ignorant society is laid not only on not knowing how to read, but also on not reading by those who can.”
Let’s mutter this together, ‘New year, New system’.
I know saying this to you is cliche, however it is important, very important to always want positive change in your life. Even when you are doing good, you should want to do better. Life is not for the stagnant ones, it’s for those who have the ability to flow around and through it in various shapes and dimensions.
On setting down your prospectives of 2022, you should clearly put reading into it. We tend to ignore that the foundation of an ignorant society is laid not only on not knowing how to read, but also on not reading by those who can.
What happens to a society full of people who do not exercise their minds? What gloom besets the fate of such society where people do not know? For reading is knowing and as Joseph Addison, the famous English writer and politician stated, "reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body".
When you ask some people, ‘Do you read?’ You get to hear bewildering replies that make you gasp while shaking your head in reflex.
“ By saying I don’t have time to read, you’re saying, ‘Yes I fully accept to choose ignorance for myself.’ ”
Just think of this; you ask someone ‘Do you read?’ And the person simply replies with, ‘No, I don’t have time like you.’
This is in all degrees laughable and permit me to say even absurd to some extent. I mean when you further inquire what they mean by 'they don’t have time like you’, they say, ‘well, I am almost always busy, I have things doing and reading is wasting part of my tight time’. Reading is delivering oneself from self-chosen ignorance. By saying I don’t have time to read, you’re saying, ‘Yes I fully accept to choose ignorance for myself.’
In ignorance, the light of wisdom even when shone on you will be mistaken for the simple harsh rays of the everyday sun. Do you know that when ignorance set in as a dweller in your mind, you and advancement have gone a thousand miles apart? You to the west and advancement to the east. You do not advance, you become stuck in one place, all your life. You might not even notice you’re held in chains, so you do not try to free yourself. Reading is the 7th sense organ. Do well to create in your self this sense organ, we’re in the 21st century; everyone’s moving forward.
Read Everything
“Is it not a double win to be both pleasured and educated at the same time?”
Reading should not be a one-way activity. In some occasions, when you ask people, ‘do you read fiction?’ They simply turn around and say, ‘Aah! Love is for ladies. I only read inspirational books.’ But then there is more to fiction than just romance or love and whoever made it a rule that only women should love or feel affection?
By reading both fiction and non fiction you’re stimulating yourself both intellectually and spiritually. Fiction makes you have an interesting overview of someone’s life somewhere. This someone might even be from the other part of the world with an entirely different culture from yours, which in turn implies that you’re getting to know an entirely different version of life. This will in turn entice you into enjoying the pleasures of going to places and seeing people through their books.
Wonderfully enough, some people absolutely believe with no iota of doubt that love is for everyone - empathy should be felt by all. However, they are of the opinion that non-fiction is the genre read by the intellects and fiction is read by the commoners.
This is a weak belief and has no base whatsoever. There are men and women who are heroes of now and tomorrow and are still great readers of fiction. Has Barrack Obama not laid a legacy for the next generation? What happened to him being a reader of fiction? Fiction informs too. It educates you in an entertaining manner. Is it not a double win for you, if you are both pleasured and educated at the same time?
There are great stories of fiction which carry history in them — Half of a Yellow Sun, A Thousand Splendid Suns, War Brides. Some stories carry in them the culture of a people — Kintu, The Good Daughter, etc. Some stories carry in them live-saving tricks, emotional and intellectual. They carry in them hope for us and for the future generation, they carry in them what it takes to inform us to be better versions of ourselves, and to have a better climate of our actions in the society.
Some readers only read from specific authors, but when you do so, I think you deprive yourself of getting to hear other voices. When you only listen to a particular person, you only get to hear their voice; their experiences, thoughts, emotions and so on.
By reading different authors, you’re increasing the credibility and width of your learning.
In this new year to come, introduce new authors into your reading list to get to hear numerous voices round the universe. Even your now favourite authors were once strange writers to you.
Because we don’t read, we don’t know that all humans are diving towards a common state; which is love. As diverse as the human race is, we are so similar even in our differences that there is no reason enough to devoid us of our unity. We go through common human sufferings, go through common pain and pleasure.
So let’s read. Let’s read both a combination of fiction and non fiction and let’s also read from new authors.
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Halima Achida is a 200 level student of Medical Laboratory Science in Usmanu Danfodiyo Unicode Sokoto, Sokoto. She hails from Sokoto and resides in Minna. She is an ardent reader, lover of words and an advocate of reading.
