A Gateway: Through Reading and Writing
A Gateway: Through Reading and Writing In today’s day and age, quality of life is assured to be raised when one is able to read and write. Reading and writing are methods of personal expression of and the obtaining of emotion and desire, academic thought and intellectual discourse, and life in general (and that is a limitless “general”). Writers such as Daniel Coleman and Homi K. Bhabha effectively demonstrate the importance of reading and writing: They are paramount qualities to our everyday lives in our society. Whether we are reading and writing to better and to expand ourselves, our minds and our own potential, we also affect and influence others around us, and can thus help to change and/or be a positive, or even revolutionary influence within our society and our environment. Through the ability to read and write, we can see how much they truly do matter, as through our ever-deepening relationship with them, great changes will happen: transformation, transcendence, evolution and progression towards our highest potential in our lives. I read because it matters to me. It matters because it is how I will live the best life, where I can obtain the most wisdom from the world itself, and from other readers and writers before me, so that I may improve and better understand myself and the world around me. In Coleman’s Reading as Counterculture, Coleman introduces ideas spawned from two of his students. I find that I share similar feelings towards reading that William has to offer: “I read to transcend the limits of my environment. I read to connect with the greatest minds in history, to see through the superficial and sloppy thinking in the world around me.” (Coleman 21) William wishes to better himself primarily, and the world around him secondly. In order to obtain the latter, he must first accomplish the former. Coleman also explains that, for William, “reading feeds his desire to take on challenging rather than superficial material.” (32) This “feeding of his