I knew if I wrote the word sexy in the title, it would quickly get the attention of my voracious blog-readers.  And then, if I wrote Part I, you would be enticed immediately to look for Part II, to see if in fact, it really is as sexy as I say. 

I won’t ask, but I bet I was close to being correct.

 Or perhaps, no matter what the title, the hordes of avid readers of my famous blog will gobble up the words with their eyes immediately, and contemplate them intensely in their agile and word-hungry brains, right?  Honestly though, would you be as excited to read this blog piece if the title was: Boogers Are Important in Our Busy Lives.

Only the individual reader can answer that question truthfully, to themselves.  But it doesn’t matter actually.  At least you are taking the time to read, which it seems to me and others, has become a lost art. Glenda Mathes says that it in her article.  She opines basically that social media sources that abound, allow us to scan text quickly on line, especially when associated with interesting videos or photos, and then quickly our eyes are blasted over to another interesting hyperlink of some type. The videos tell our minds what to think without questioning it, and our brain cells do not have to do the work to chew on words at all.  At least, that is what I believe.  It is instant gratification without having to work your mind very much.

  Most people spend five to six hours a day on digital media and nearly 25% of people cannot name a single author of a book or a genre they read that year.  Back to Mathes, she also says retirees read more than younger age groups, but still averaging only one hour per day.  In my own experience as a writer, I have found that a lot of people under age 30 do not read books, whether digital or paper.  In fact, paper would be more rare. They look at me and say: I don’t read.  This may be an over-generalization, of course, but when I talk to someone under thirty and they say they love to read books, it makes my heart palpitate a little.  Predominantly though, they prefer video on social media sites such as Tik Tok —the Chinese propaganda machine for our young, or Instagram or whatever.

With regard to reading books and literature, the great C.S. Lewis writes: we seek an enlargement of our being and we want to be more than ourselves.  We want to see with other eyes, to imagine with other imaginations, to feel with other hearts as well as our own.”   Basically, I think that means the written word can be effective in stimulating your brain and taking you to places or locales or constructs that only your mind can take you, forming the image that YOU create in your own mind’s eye, without being led in a certain direction by the exciting video.  In fact, your interpretation of the words in your own fantastic gift of a brain, may be much more interesting than the pretty pictures that are fed to you.

That is why, in my belief, the phrase that many utter: the book was much better than the movie may in fact, be truth, at least in a lot of cases.  Although, in my view, one example of it not being true is the movie: Forest Gump. I saw the movie multiple times and loved it, but when I read the book by Winston Groom, it was completely different and not as plausible or deeply touching as the movie, and I complement the screenwriters for those edits.  That is why I like both reading and movies, but with reading, I believe you think more and therefore fly farther without visual constraints.

I’ve often found that when you read, you have an excellent conversation starter for people you may not know or know only superficially.  For example, if you are sitting next to someone on the airplane, or at a coffee shop, and you see them engrossed in a book, you can simply ask them, without much fear of rejection, “what is your favorite author, or, what genres do you like to read?”  Invariably, the person will smile, and let their guard down because you both feel a connection as part of the reading community that is not constantly staring at a cell phone or computer screen.  You realize quickly that the person is different than others.   The person likely will say something like: “I love mysteries and romance novels, and occasional civil war history.  My favorite author is blah…”

That’s of course when I say, “You need to read my books.”  If she’s an attractive woman, of course, that is a way for a single man to start a conversation without being rejected immediately.  Maybe he will be rejected later on, but certainly not immediately.  Not that I would know anything at all about that technique, you know, but that is what I read in some almost-respected scientific journals.

And I might add this: even if a woman is physically attractive, she is even more attractive if she can hold a conversation about history, or books, or her favorite novels.  It makes her even more sexy, in my um, you know, book. And although I am a man, I wonder if this is true about a woman who notices a man reading, perhaps, that tells her something about him right away.

So, I think now, you understand that reading is sexy.

Now, isn’t this piece, filled with 965 delicious words much better than a bunch of flashy videos?

Stay tuned for Part II of Reading is Sexy.  Gotcha, don’t I?

©2023 SRCarson Publications