Life in a Bookshelf

There is one research that reckons a person can read, on the average, around 500 books in his lifetime. If one were to live for 70 years, it translates to roughly seven books every year. I failed to clarify though if this includes academic books; and if this does, I'm well within (or above?) the average. But for geeks and bookworms - count me out! - this may seem an underrated estimate. But in any case, reading books is one of the best hobbies one can delve into. Every page of a book tells you more about the real world, and every flip of a page may bring you to realms unimaginable.

I started reading when I was four. Okay, I could only read words pausing at every syllable and not understanding most that I uttered (except for no, not , and, the, and other two- to three-letter words). After lunch, I would rather grab the newspaper and read as if I could add any knowledge to myself than take the siesta which I really hated (of course, escaping from my yaya to play in the the rice fields - my playground - was another fun alternative).

Then I started writing on walls using the white chalk-like marker my grandfather used for carpentry. In most parts of the house, especially the living room, were scribbles of a-b-c-d-to-z and dog, cat, map and whatever three-letter word I could to spell. To me they looked like masterpieces for, back then, I didn't know the difference between the alphabet and hieroglyphs. To my folks, it was vandalism. But my grandmother, who was a school teacher, appreciated my murals and asked to preserve them. They all stayed there until I was about 11. Until now when I pay a visit to my old house, I can still see some artifacts of my earliest "essays" on the walls.

My first reading books (not coloring books of which I also had a number, my favorite being Batman and Robin) were The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams, Catwings by Ursula Le Guin, and The Ghost Army whose author I can't recall. They were real treasures. They made me imagine a world of my own with dancing fairies, villain ghosts, crying and talking toys, and flying cats. Of course, all these images I got from TV, but reading opened a different horizon and created a lasting experience.

Now when I look at my shelves (and I don't mean library), I see books of different sorts. In the bottom shelf are books I burned my eyebrows with during my years in the university: Immunology, Molecular Cloning, Moelcular Biology of the Cell, Developmental Biology, etc. They now seem like white elephants, but still remain very good reminders of the years that passed nonetheless. Right beside them are my new finance books and manuals I now read - I'm just so into them. I also got a number of other books on the upper shelf - science fiction, history, business (the World is Flat among others, a must-read), style guide (The Economist Style Guide and Strunk and White's The Elements of Style, another must-reads), philosophy, humanities, all sorts of stuff.

Reading is fun. In some moments it may become another I-do-it-tomorrow pasttime. But like any other hobby, one needs to develop the love affair. I had mine started when I began writing on walls. But I'm no bookworm.