THE ART OF READING

 

It used to be just a year or so ago, when I’d click on news sites; I would read the news.  Lately, that has changed.  When I click on a specific news story, I immediately get a separate tab (since I click “open in a new tab”) and then a video appears with a commercial then the news article with a “talking head or heads” explaining the news story for me so I don’t have to read it.

 

Just click and listen, no need to read. 

 

So my question to you is, do you mute the video or stop it (which are options) and read the article or do you listen while you read or do you just listen.

 

If you listen while you read or just listen, be very careful.  You are shortchanging yourself.  You are hurting your ability to sift through the written word and extract the meaning.  If someone has to explain what you are reading or just explain it to you, then I feel that the system is “dumbing” us down.  It is reducing one cognitive ability and potentially making us lazy.

It is very good news for people with sight problems and I applaud that people with those issues can now hear the news on the internet news sights.  There are better ways I am sure to do that.  How can one click on the appropriate news article if one cannot see the headline, I’m not sure how that works since I can see and use that method.  I am sure there are better sites around for those with the affliction of not being able to see very well.

But to us with our senses and brains intake, we need to preserve that bastion of knowledge and ability.  WE NEED TO READ!  We need to make sense of the written word.  It promotes not only our ability to read but also our ability to focus, concentrate and translate those cyphers into articles.  It also promotes, Dear Readers and Dear Writers, a livelihood for those of us who write.

If you do not read my site then my site is of NO use to you.  Think about that, for all of you Readers and Writers.  My “job” is to get eyes on my pages, without that capability then I can close my site and shut it down and do something else.

When I write I am exercising so many abilities at once that it is phenomenal.  It is powerful and it is exhilarating!  It is magical and wonderful!  It is divine; at least it is to me.

I am a simple writer and am trying to transcribe meaning into not only your life but first and foremost my own.  It is through my understanding of what I have read or heard about that I am gifting to you through my written word.

Drop a note of appreciation.  Just say, hey, I like your writing.  That means the world to me.  I love reading my correspondence to see what you have to say.  The most meaningful interaction of my day is when someone says to me, hey, I read your article and I like it. 

I love it!  That is wonderful.  It makes me feel alive and appreciated and spurs me on to do it again and again.

Thank you, Dear Writers and Dear Readers, for reading my words!