Reading

~ a poem

Why do we read?

To discover your truth. Our truth.

~

Words, the engine of creation
The mind houses it all
The pen opens the hold
An infinitude of realizable imaginations unbound

Books feed the acumen of speciation
Consuming the words, ideas, dreams of others,
in turn
Constructing inner aspirations,
Enhancing reflections of the self,
Breeding chimeric originality

Stories let us escape into the imagination — of ideal and of nightmare,

In the light of the ideal, we envision ourselves the hero, the seeker of justice, the speaker of Truth
//
Residing in the darkness of the nightmare, we revile the lows the human frame is capable of and decry the frequent injustices of our own reality

The words inhabit us as we seek the truth of the characters,
It excites us to find the secrets in others we aren’t capable of revealing ourselves

Both paths drawn for the same purpose — to inspire one to higher levels of consciousness.

Through story, we conceptualize the universe
in all of its forms.
Stories advance us to new realms.

Empowered with emotional intelligence & creative endeavor:
Man will explore the nature of our consciousness, Seek answers to the complexities of human relation, Escape a harsh reality, Mitigate a depressive countenance, Channel our inner hero, Empathize with villains born of suffering, Face evil with stoic defiance, Brave inner adversity with outer temperance, Confront conflict with words rather than weapons
— Find our truth, for which we may live and die

And now, pen in hand,
the time comes to create your own story
And live forever.

“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.”
— Anne Lamott

~ art by Jungho Lee