read and enjoy

 

To read something to understand what the writer or author conveys or what he intends to be convey, just to understand and enjoy without any necessity to analyse or interpret to an audience, is really a pleasurable pastime.

When we do that without dancing to the writer’s fancy, it is a more comfortable activity. However when we  set out  to  read with a hawk's eye always intent on finding fault and with the sole aim to coin and post some sarcastic or sour remark , anticipating  reaction or "like" s, that becomes a stressful activity, even a nightmare.

Ultimately, sensible reading takes a lot of training and discipline. We just grow into the process.

True, in the course of gaining such experience, we may spend a few nights in the wayside inn of "reading for the audience". That is merely a temporary phase.

Like listening to music or enjoying a work of art, reading too can be sheer pleasure.

We find ourselves in the personal and exclusive territory of the author, laughing, crying and even dancing with him, as he interacts with us through the printed words. That is a great experience, sublime one, for a lover of words. For a lover of letters that happiness would be almost on par with realization of the Supreme.

As we read on, at some stage, we would become conscious of the style or the lack of it in the writing.

However, we will progress further into a stage where grammar and syntax would hardly matter. We just resonate in harmony with the ideas and emotions conveyed by the author.

Then we would devour a book from its flyleaf to the last page, never bothering about time or space.

There we can shed tears of ecstasy for having shared with the author those unearthly moments and tears of agony that the book has reached its end.

Maybe, such things happen rarely in our lives, our reading life.