A New Habit

Since December last year, I've been on the longest school-break of my life - perhaps the last one. Before the holidays, I have long planned to do some part-time work during this holiday term. I have actually went to ask a few tuition centres around my town for a job, and through the Internet too - but to no avail. I've also received a text message from a friend who offered a part-time work in my university. Considering that I'm about 300km away from my university, I aptly denied the offer.

"So what have you been doing, Kim?" many people have asked me. The reply was, as I've written on a friend's facebook wall: "Books, Blogging and Babysitting". Well, that wasn't a complete list, so let me add a few: listening to music, facebook, holiday trips, eat and sleep. But among all major activities that I've been doing this holiday, reading has been the most enjoyable, worthwhile, and refreshing activity yet.

The first non-academic book that I've actually finished reading - until its last page - was "Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone",which was a birthday gift from my sister, when I was 12. It's a shame that it was also my last, until late last year - almost 9 years later. Simply put, I've never loved reading. I thought it was a waste of time. Why not? It'd be better for me, I thought, to watch TV and movies to learn about new stuff; books are boring and would consume too much of my "precious" time. Clearly, I was wrong.

To get a clear perspective on the influence of books, and the importance of reading; let me quote Carl Sagan from his book "The Demon Haunted World: Science As A Candle In The Dark":

   For 99 percent of the tenure of humans on earth, nobody could read or write. The great invention had not yet been made. Except for first-hand experience, almost everything we knew was passed on by word of mouth. As in the children's game "Telephone," over tens and hundreds of generations, information would slowly be distorted and lost.

  Books changed all that. Books, purchasable at low cost, permit us to interrogate the past with high accuracy; to tap the wisdom of our species; to understand the point of view of others, and not just those in power; to contemplate - with the best teachers - the insights, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, drawn from the entire planet and from all of our history. They allow people long dead to talk inside our heads. Books can accompany us everywhere. Books are patient where we are slow to understand, allow us to go over the hard parts as many times as we wish, and are never critical of our lapses. Books are key to understanding the world and participating in a democratic society.

What Dr. Carl Sagan said is still true, until today: "[Books] allow people long dead to talk inside our heads". He died on December 20, 1996. For all the power and benefits of reading, it's no wonder then that the Quran admonishes mankind to "Read, in the name of your Lord who created. [96:1]" The question now is, what kind of books must we read?

I thought, before my term starts this August, I'd have plenty of time to read as much as possible, about whatever topics I find interesting - non-medical and non-fiction preferably - because come August, my focus would return to my medical studies. There would be very little, if any, time (and energy) to read non-medical books once my school term begins.