I believe in reading. That’s no secret, huh?

Books, newspapers, circulars, catalogues. Signs, maps, instructions, manuals. The world of reading, the access it creates -it’s unsurpassable. If I had to name one activity, one interest, that has aided me in developing into the successful, striving, curious, critical, and loving person I am today? Reading, hands down, number one.

Reading gets the trophy.

So when I read an article in my new favorite thoughtful-living magazine, Taproot, where a father considers the potential ramifications of his non-reading seven-year-old son, I felt horrified. It wasn’t that the author neglected his obligations as a parent, or even that the child would lag behind his peers in education or access. To me, reading is a sense, and here was this family, blissfully bypassing the opportunity for one of its members to partake.

For me, not-reading seemed, perhaps a little over-dramatically, a world without words. ‘Til my partner sagely stepped in and put the brakes on my rant. He informed me that some people hold by the philosophy that learning to read fixes the way people think. That it sets worn paths for the mind to follow. I wanted to shout, I love those paths! Sign me up for the tour to poetry, to fantasy, to romance and philosophy and cooking!

But when I thought a little about how I experience the world though movement, relating, soundless or soundfilled watching and connecting. And then I thought, hmmm …