Why do we read?

Have you noticed that most people who read are somehow more connected with their surroundings, than those who don't? I am not referring to people who gobble up information as if they were Emile from Ratatouille (you know... the brother?), without knowledge or sincere appreciation for what it is they are reading; like big grinders.

And I'm not talking about the ones who abuse received information to gain power and then abuse the latter in turn.

No. I'm talking about the other readers. The people who gain seemingly unnecessary knowledge from books. People who cannot not read, but wouldn't be able to tell you why it is they read in the first place .

I had asked myself that question for years - "Why do I read? What's the point?" This was a puzzle I failed to solve. But what are friends for if not for this kinda thing, huh?

And so, I asked the one person, who I knew would give me an answer I liked (I never like answers I don't like), my friend S.P. His reply came promptly: "Perspective", he said. "We see the situation from a different perspective". And like an avalanche, triggered by his answer, the sub-answers to all my sub-questions tumbled onto me. "Perspective".

The characters in the books are not us. They seldom do what we would have done in their situation. They don't see the intricacies we do, yet see others hidden from us. The writers show different shadows to us, the character's point of view. There are adventurers and lovers, villains and regular folk, mothers, superheros, toys, animals, inanimate objects... There is no list to list all the creatures the reader gets to connect with and sympathize with through the books.

And then life happens. And you notice that you no longer evaluate people as you might have done before. Things don't seem as obscure or as puzzling as they did before. Connection level changes. Lots of things come into focus.

And then there was one last question. "Why is it so important to change my perspective, to heighten the connection level?"

"Ummm... It feels good", I answered.

Memory

Some of my friends have been worrying for years that their memory is slipping. Especially women with children - they aren’t able to remember the simplest things, like bringing cookies to school, even though they made the promise only yesterday.

My friends can attest to the fact that I myself can't remember events, conversations, even people. I had to meet some of my friends more than once, because I couldn’t remember meeting them the first time around. Now I simply let people know when I meet them: 'I’m sorry, but I might need to meet you again. I have bad face memory.'

While I'm not happy about this, I don’t worry about it at all. Contrary to my friends, I don't think this has anything to do with age. Besides, I think I have very good memory.

First of all: I believe remembering things is a talent. And like any talent there are different qualities to it, degrees, sizes, colors, shades. I know someone who is able to glance at a person for a second, then describe them in nauseating detail. But they might not be able to remember what that movie was called that they loved so much.

My memory talent lies elsewhere. In 6th grade two people exchanged phone numbers in my presence. I needed one of the numbers 4 years later. Need I say more?

I can quote books and movies, while I can’t remember the actors’ names.

Second: I believe our memory is similar to a hard drive. With years that hard drive gets full. Some of the older data is stored deeper in our brains, whilst new data gets bounced off as “unable to save, not enough space on disk”. Even more so for mothers: they have to remember their childrens’s “stuff” as well as their own.

If your hard drive is full, nothing new will get saved on it.

Third: When we try not to forget something – we keep reminding ourselves about it over and over lest we forget it, thus using our RAM & overloading our hard drive: 'don’t-forget-not-to-forget-to-not-forget-to-forget-not…' leaving very little "juice" for anything else.

As I said, “not remembering” doesn’t bother me. I put reminders on my phone – it alerts me when the tasks are due. I make “to do” lists for everything - that buys me a lot of time, and... hey, I meet same people again and again.

That's pretty exciting.