The Wonderful Terrible World of Reading

   I must say, I lately feel as though I am in the “depths of despair”.

   Many people, almost the whole world in fact, preach that books are a person’s best friend. I would disagree, and very strongly at that. Books, I feel, are terribly scheming little things, slowly ensnaring you into their lovely worlds, making the reader grow fonder of the story and its characters in ever so small steps. Then, when the innocent reader has immersed themselves in the book completely, and wishes for nothing more than to be a part of it, the book uncaringly shuts its doors upon us, stating that it was a work of fiction and was never to be believed in the first place.

   How, oh how, is the poor mind of the reader supposed to understand that? Moreover, however must the innocent heart begin to comprehend such a cruel truth?

   Books have occupied a major portion of my life. At first I, like everyone else, believed that reading was a wonderful thing that opened the gates of imagination, which is ever so necessary to nurture the mind. But other young readers grew out of this phase. They found more interesting things in their lives. They found friends to interact with, new things and happenings to talk about, and goodness knows what else.

   Slowly, but surely, my friends, acquaintances, and almost everyone I knew drifted away from my world of fantasies. But I stayed true to my dear books, knowing they would never leave my side. What, I would ask myself, was the point of feigning interests and altering one’s very essence, towards the sole gain of having more “friends”?

   And so, I continued upon my singular, yet happy journey. In my moments of loneliness, I would remind myself that the path lesser trod upon was the path worth pursuing. Besides, I had the trusty characters from all my favourite books who for me, like for so many others, were my true friends.

   This continued as days melted into months which melted into years. Time went on, but my dear books and their lovely worlds stayed with me. After a while however, I realised a certain flaw in my logic. While I swore numerous characters from numerous novels were my ‘best friends ever’, I realised that these ‘best friends’ never bothered responding to me. They were completely and happily immersed in their own world, not bothered in the least about this lonely soul, who had forsaken so much and desperately wanted nothing more than to be part of their world, and incessantly pounded in vain on the doors which divide dreams and reality.

   After countless false reassurances to oneself, and even more moments where these flimsy reassurances were shattered, one is forced to accept the cold and harsh reality that books are nothing more than a fake window looking into an ideal and perfect world, which can never truly be achieved.

   It is in moments such as these where I wonder if I might have been better off had I never bothered reading in the first place. While I do believe that right now, I reckon that with a new day and a new perspective, I shall be glad that I entrusted my deepest emotions in a bound wad of printed paper for “it is better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all.”