I can safely say that in the last 12 months I’ve read more books than in any previous 12 month period before, not that it’s all that much to boast about as I’ve probably only read about a dozen books in total – along with several thousands of hours worth of blog, discussion board and newspaper online reading.
You see I wasn’t much of a reader when I was young. I was much of a writer either. I was shy and had a slight speech impediment as a young fella and I guess that slight impediment transferred through to my schooling days where I largely shied away from reading and writing as much as I could as I wasn’t as good as the other kids, and as such didn’t enjoy these activities.
Looking back at my high school days, nothing much changed really. I wasn’t particularly good at English and I only remember reading a handful of books and plays I was supposed to read during English class, The Great Gatsby, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Crucible and Maestro, I still remember to this day having actually read and enjoyed – among a select few others.
This didn’t stop my Mum from encouraging me to take up the highest strain of English class in my final two years of high school in the hope that I’d somehow enjoy the experience and get good grades. That experiment lasted a good six months of pain-filled, anxiety-ridden classes full of predominately enthusiastic female classmates happily discussing every minute detail of Jane Eyre or some such shit with myself wishing to disappear in the background and praying that I don’t inevitably get asked questions on text I hadn’t bothered reading.
For I had much more productive endeavours to pursue during my high school free time rather than reading shitty books. There was the frequent map drawing via pen or computer – I had a weird hobby, I wanted to become a cartographer; the afternoon informal footy games with mates after school; the occasional swim or cricket match with my brother in the park outside our house; or my most treasured activity whilst home alone – scouring our household’s extensive video collection in the hope that I can find at least one nude, topless or nip-slip scene from a raunchy film to masturbate to. Yes, I had more lofty endeavours to spend my precious time with than to read a fucking book. So, I choose to avoid reading at all costs.
This book reading aversion largely continued throughout my tertiary studies – both graduate and post-graduate. It was about this time the Internet came about and when I wasn’t masturbating to fake images of Mariah Carey topless – the other 10% of the time I actually started reading usenet discussion groups on all manner of weird and wonderful things. For once in my life, my reading was taking precedent over my watching TV.
After my none-too-stellar academic career I found myself working part-time and needing coin with little motivation to find a real job back home, I found myself coming to Korea. Finding myself hoisted into the centre of South Korea’s educational zealotry as one of its prime facilitators – the educator – I found myself simultaneously disturbed and in wonderment at the lengths Koreans – in particularly Korean mothers – value education and learning. Hour after hour, class after class, kids are boxed into classrooms and study halls – and if they’re lucky they might learn something new at the end of the day. Not only that, but adults too seem to take pride and have drive to join a club, group or class and learn something new or perhaps improve themselves in some way.
This was all a foreign concept for an urban Australian. Most urban Australian males beyond the peak sporting ages of under 25 are interested in watching sport on TV, mentioning to mates their new car/house/power drill, or feeling actively going to the beach and perving on topless chicks whilst the wife isn’t looking. But, rarely does anything remotely educational enter the average Australian male’s mind past the age of 25. That shit’s for schoolkids, uni students, or uppity wankers.
But, the longer I’ve stayed in Korea the more I’ve been drawn into actually learning something in my – ample – free-time whether it be a new language (I’ve so far dabbled with 6 in one form or another for varied results), learning the guitar (another work in progress), or reading books I should have read a decade and a half ago.
Scientists have increasingly found that the brain – being a muscle, just like any other muscle – needs regular exercise to keep strong, agile and alert. As such, they recommend livelong learning involving mentally stimulating activities as simple as crossword puzzles, Sudoku, or reading to keep the brain going and reduce the risks of degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s. To this, I plan to keep learning, keep reading and in doing so hopefully tackle all those books I should have read in my youth.
Wish me luck!
