What I get from reading
Mr. Sutthichai Vicki Artrith
Everybody might be familiar with the word reading as one of the skills or learning processes but for some might think of the novel books for pleasure. For me, reading is everything in my life. I love to spend my time reading everything that lies in front of me. If I came up with the question to ask myself what type of reading I love most? The answer would be reading for pleasure absolutely. Most of people might think that what the advantage of reading is. And again, for me, reading is a big deal in my life. Reading can give me many great things. In this essay, I will tell you what I get from my reading.
I always ask myself when I finished each books of my reading that what I get from this book. One major answer is the experience that I never have before. I mention about the indirect experience that I cannot find by myself but I really want to know how I will feel if I have an experience like that. Let me give you an example from my favourite book, Harry Potter, I really want to know what magic is. Unfortunately, magic as a kind of spell is not real and I cannot cast them. So, the only way to reach for my dream is reading the book and thinking that I am the one who casts the spell. Or another example is that I want to have an experience when I travel by the air-balloon to travel around the world, I can read Eighty days around the world to complete my desire. All of these is the experience that I cannot find by myself. Moreover, I can learn other people's experience by reading as well. Most of the books exist nowadays told the story of people such as how to be a millionaire, or how to keep in good shape. Beside the experience, I can learn the people's opinion by reading as well. What do they think about this world or in any situation? Do I agree with them? Do I think differently? I can learn their philosophy of living from them and adapt it to use properly with me. Or I can learn even the bad experiences too. For example, I used to read the book called "Go Ask Alice!" which tells the story of a girl who died by drug overuse. It scared me at the first time but later on, I found the new experience which is I have a pity on her, I have pity on her life, her death and I think back and promise to myself not to do like this. Learning from one's mistakes can be one of the things that I get from reading. Above all, experience is one of the great things that human should learn so it is very important for me to learn one's experience from reading.
Reading also gives me a pleasure. While I am reading, I can forget everything even the time for eating. I know that is not so good but it shows how much pleasure I have got from reading. Reading can gives me the pleasure to help me forget the bad things. Everyman has to have a bad thing, so do I. When my life runs in to the problems or the bad things, I did not want to think of it, I try my hardest to think of anything else like in the song from The Sound of Music "when the dog bites, when the bee strings, when I feeling sad,.., I try to think of my favourite things and my favourite thing is reading. It is the best way for me to forget the bad and terrible thing. From my experience, I once broke up with my significant other, I burst into tears, cried a lot and I cannot find the way out. I ended up with reading to pick my favourite books and read it. Even thought it is a love story, it might make me cry, but I still got something good from them.
Besides the pleasure that helps me to forget the bad things, I also get the happiness from reading as well. The story from the books makes me smile, laugh, happy or even cry. However, all of my actions above which caused from reading make me knows the emotion of human being. I am so glad to know that. As you know, it is like my determination to learn everything in this world including the human emotions. I do not mind if I cry until my eyes have no tears left to cry when I read the sad love story. After I read the last page of each book, I can find my heart warm and clam. I can find myself know the importance of living. I will know the value of love and be loved in return, the value of life. Within the sad story, the tragic story, I can find the good things in its story, too.
The next best things that I get from reading is that the imagination. Nowadays, the books contain the imagination in it. Like the magical-fantasy books. Einstein used to say that imagination is important than knowledge and I myself found that because of imagination and creativity, our world became civilized like this and because of it I can create everything that I want to, both reality and dream. Reading can help me get the picture in my mind clearly. When I read the books about the dragon (There exists a lot nowadays), even I never see the real dragon before because it is the myth and created creature, I can think of the dragon's picture and its characteristics clearly in my mind and I called this as an imagination. I saw the important of imagination as a tool to create the new world -- a world without any limitations. I can think further to anything up from the root of the three to the highest mountain of the Mars. That is the benefits I get from imagination by reading.
Reading, besides giving me experience, pleasure and imagination, also develop my abilities in many ways as follow; first, I am the one who read a lot. The more I read, the more fast reader I am. Is it helpful to be a fast reader? Absolutely yes! I have experience when I was in the testing room, the time for doing the paper is so limited and I need to have it done on time and because my fast reader ability, I can have it done and also have time for revision. So, this is the good way of being a fast reader. Second, from a lot of my reading, I am able to understand things better such as human emotion. Somebody used to say that novel is a mirror reflects the human life. When I read the novel, I can notify human emotion easily. What do they feel when they act like this. The action of human, as it is described in the novel books, is mostly like common human being. Or verbal communication, we can understand human emotion from their speech directly and indirectly. Do they irony on word? It is quite easy for me to recognize them. Third, the human differences can be understood by reading as well. The books will contain many characteristics of human. When I read and meet the various stereotypes of human, I can understand them that help me to be better in living in the society. People, some is good, some is bad and some can not be defined but if I am able to understand them, I will find the best way to live with them all happily. However, human mind is so deep; it might be deeper than the deepest blue sea in the ocean. Sometimes, I find it hard to understand them but reading can help me.
All of these are the things I get from my reading. As I tell you or you might know before that I love reading more than anything in this world. Books never betray me, books always be by my side, be my friend. Without reading, my life is going to be boring. I do promise with myself that I will keep on reading as long as I can.
