‘A day spent without reading is a day wasted.’ What is your view?
Reading is a tool for exchanging information through comprehending written text or through oral communication. Furthermore, reading is associated with a host of benefits such as improving brain development especially in young children, broadening one's knowledge base, and personal enrichment through the complexities and meanings of ideas expressed in the text. However, this was not always the case with the world and besides, there are other ways to spend a day purposefully . Hence, regardless of the benefits and importance of reading, a day spent without reading is not always a day wasted.
Firstly, the purpose of reading to the average person (in the developed world) would be to gain knowledge and push the boundaries of imagination. Besides functional reading for work and academic pursuits, fiction and non-fiction literature are highly popular with the masses. In countries where the reading culture is strong, or at least emerging, such as Singapore, many people read for recreation. Hence by definition, reading would mean the day is not wasted.
Nonetheless, historically, most parts of the world were considered illiterate. The general population communicated verbally, while usually the bourgeoisie class, including religious leaders, could partake in reading. At one time, being literate meant being able to sign one's own name. In the Western world, that became the ability to read and write Latin, regardless of their mother tongues. However, the proletariat, or the working class, had their share of significant contributions as well. Rome was not built in a day, but it could not have been possible without the labourers, which certainly did not read.
Reading prevents people from reinventing the wheel, but curiously enough, the inventor of the wheel did not read. Furthermore, the inventor of the light bulb and the man who came up with the energy-mass equivalence E=mc^2 had problems reading too. Although Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein were not illiterate, they were diagnosed by modern day specialists as having dyslexia, a type of reading disability that affects proficiency of reading and spelling. Hence, it is not always true that a day spent without reading is a day wasted, considering the great achievements of these people.
ahhh, not that i'm still stuck in the philo mood, this one is really homework.
wheeeeeeee, yea, for me reading is important but one day or days without reading won't kill. every day, there's the straits times and today. every week i get a good dose of time and economist (newsweek wasn't appealing). and every month, reader's digest, national geog and a host of random newsletters like Temasek club's. ahhh, and of course notes. haha, and random books. see, but on some days, like camps, i don't take books along. yep, and what better way to spend a day then go for some long kayak expedition (end of year anyone interested?) or bike ride, or a good swim? and wheeeeeee, age of empires fever! ok, there is some reading involved (like reading the characters' names and maps), but most of it is in the action. reading seems to imply passivity, haha, but the last i heard, this acsi canoe teacher i/c does pullups while reading (one armed!)
parade in a hour! YES! waited one whole year for this happy birthday singapore!
