LETTERS: The year will end soon. How has 2021 been for you? Have you picked up any new hobbies? How about reading more in 2022? Perhaps visit the local library?
You may ask, why pick up a book? Why take the trouble to spend time reading? In this increasingly digitalised world, would it not be easier to just look everything up on the Internet? Everything is presented in attractive audio-visual formats on a screen. Entertainment aplenty.
And visiting the library? Perhaps you think there are better things to do for leisure after work, like going for a brief holiday getaway, strolling through a mall or watching or streaming movies.
I remember when I was young, my parents would take my siblings and me to the Johor Baru public library every weekend to read. With a small membership fee per year, we could bring home many books. Coming from a family that was not well to do, we knew we could not afford to buy any books, but we were happy nonetheless.
Years later, when the Sultan Ismail library moved, we followed faithfully. During my working years in Penang and now Ipoh, I would always be on the lookout for public libraries.
Much to my delight, there is a Lincoln's Corner at the tiny community library at the Ipoh Urban Transformation Centre. (Why was it named after Lincoln? Read on.)
What have we gained from libraries? The experience of wandering the aisles and towering shelves of books is exciting but also humbling. The world opens up. The freedom to choose and pick up any book that piques us, how democratic it is! No algorithm can do that.
Books introduce us to many cerita dongeng, epic tales, great biographies, strange fiction and, on a more serious note, works by people who can improve our knowledge and hence ourselves. When reading, we leave our own consciousness momentarily and enter into another person's life and thus gain their perspectives.
We learn that there are a multitude of thoughts. Reading ideas transmitted in different forms, styles and prose expands our understanding and challenges our assumptions. It provides us a chance to think, to infer and to feel for and empathise with other people. It teaches us to respect and accept others.
We also learn to read between the lines. Reading gives us time to reflect; like an internal monologue building meaning for the reader. Perhaps the phrase "don't judge a book by its cover" has a deeper take. Such is the power of books.
Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States, was a symbol of freedom and self-education. Even though Lincoln had very little formal education, he loved to read. Neighbours remembered how he would walk for miles to borrow a book. He read everything he could.
Yes, we are what we read. I thank my parents for that.
Cheah C.F.
Ipoh
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times