Edwin (right) in a discussion at the Creekside Reading Circuit Nairobi
I read because I have a BIG gaping hole in my consciousness that I want to fill. I not only want to fill it but I also want to shovel out the crap that makes up part of it contents, the void. The emptiness is a beast that is alive and its called ignorance. Every time I read instead of killing it I’m feeding it and it grows bigger and scarier because the more I read the more I realise I don’t know shit. No wonder the great philosopher King Solomon sounded depressed as he wrote Ecclesiastes. He studied copious Books and Scrolls and Manuscripts and the conclusion he came to was “What’s the point? Itsall useless!”.
I read to find answers. Answers beyond questions that I have asked because having answers that someone else is seeking means they will value me. I don’t read for fun because reading in itself is not fun for me. I read to know and the more I know the better placed I am to manipulate the mediocre masses and thats the fun part. Otherwise there is a myriad of more fun things to do for those of us who share my proclivity for hedonism.
Simply put, I read because I’m an idiot who is fortunate enough to realise he is one. Let me take this opportunity to implore you, dear reader, to never forsake this noble habit, reading, so as to remedy the inherent human condition of cluelessness if you are to have any chance of surviving. Literature illuminates the mind of the illiterate and much as ignorance may be bliss, its also fucking scary. Thats why I read books, blogs, the Bible, tweets, porn, status updates, medieval and postmodern philosophy and sometimes…I try and read people.
