They don’t understand

“How can a tiresome task of analyzing pages after pages, jumbled with thousands of characters be acknowledged as ‘fun’? LOL, pathetic! ‘’

‘’Reading books actually makes your facial features distorted and makes you look dumb, I have noticed.’’

‘’Watching movies is much better than reading books.’’

‘’HAHA! I am so glad I am not a nerd.’’

Perched at the rickety chair placed at the corner of the commissary, I was quietly listening to the girls throwing disparaging comments about reading. Apparently, they did not have any logical reason for all this miserable detestation towards books, they were just doing it. Generally, when you are speaking ill of something or somebody you attempt to keep your raging emotions to yourself or to the people you are sharing with, or at least you make sure not to be loud enough to be heard by the individuals surrounding you for no matter how rational it is for you, your resentment can be disturbing or annoying to them.

But the young ladies who were seated a few feet away from my table seemed to be lost in their own world where the only thing that mattered is themselves and their opinions. They didn’t seem to pay any heed to the basic ethics of sitting in public, or maybe they were never taught about it.

Usually, I don’t care about people and their curt behavior they tend to manifest all the time but this time their disregard was for reading books. Seriously? I mean, it’s better to not care about things instead of disregarding them without even delving in enough to know its worth.

For a person like me who is not usually comfortable about hanging out with people and prefers to keep on discovering her personality by herself, having to read something is a blessing. In fact, these days when I have struggled to come out of my depression, reading is the only thing that helps me survive.

It takes me far away from this noisy and turbulent world and lands me in a peaceful place that is free from all kinds of worries and stress in life. A place where no thought is thrust over me forcibly causing me to willow in a state of eternal agony, instead I have my freedom to choose what I want to think and wonder. It’s like living in my own beautiful world, where there are no restrictions or boundaries regarding fantasy. Most importantly, I am able to live in serene moments devoid of disturbance.

Reading is just that close to my heart.

Maybe, that’s why I got so worked up after listening to their conversation. But maybe, the people as arrogant as them will never understand the delicacy of every letter printed on that page of the book and the satisfaction I feel by going through the inflections in emotions of the characters within a single page. As polished as they all look, people like them never really go into the detail of the things, all that matters to them are the superficial aspects.