The Moral Duty to Read.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
♥ Saturday, June 21, 2008
Whilst Jodi Picoult brings her audiences into the darkest pits of human tragedy, she spiritly lifts them up with sensational heroism displayed in the quotidiary actions of a mother or a lawyer or a police or a judge or a sister making inconceivable moral sacrifices. The beauty of human transcendence thus becomes encapsulated in about 560 pages. And that is a glimpse.And a glimpse is all what we need,really. If the eyes are the windows of the soul; and like a plant in a dark room that requires light for life, our eyes have become the means in which the soul finds its light for life. What can that light be, really? As Francis Bacon says, its Reading that maketh a full man. So through the eyes of Jodi Picoult, one becomes a child struggling with sexuality; the eyes of Khaled Hosseini, one experiences the vast depths of human unforgiveness and the paths one has to go through for liberation; the eyes of Aldous Huxley, he is plunged into the world of utter enslavement. These glimpses throw light on the soul, literally and metaphorically. For reading lucidates and reveals simultaneously- the reader learns and reflects, a part of him is left with the character, the other part of the character becomes forged within him. And this paradoxical dynamic that takes place is really what gives rise to the most noble of human ideals- compassion, forgiveness, sympathy, empathy. Should i be required to even emphasize the need for such humanity in a disenchated world?At the top of Maslow's hierachy of needs is self actualization: the need for morality, creativity, acceptance of facts, spontaneity. As reading feeds the soul, it provides the intellectual platform for such needs to be fulfilled. For the cliche that knowledge is power isnt without its merits. Creativity begins with plagiarism as according to Friedrich Nietzhe, and what can one really parrot apart from the knowledge that he currently has? The best Man is to be, begins with the acquisition of knowledge. And reading thus becomes the well in which Man must drink for the intellectual soul to be quenched and satisfied with truth. What is the connection between reading, truth and power? Reading reveals truth. And as the saying goes, "by the power of truth, i whilst living, would have conquered the world."Aesthetically speaking, we paint our world in only so few colours from the palates of our intelligence. Yet, the shades of grey that often keeps us from leaping to our self righteous conclusions often arrive in the form of a text. Either a satire or a lyric; either through the lenses of the great Oscar Wilde or the quixotic Milan Kundera. Those are the moral quandaries that keep us thinking. And as far as Descartes goes, to think is to be. The philosophical freedom that language promises, is a journey that the intellectual must embark upon. And that begins with the first word of that first story book, be it Fulton Sheen, Platos' Symposium or plain simple Nancy Drew.Read. For life. And for Life.
