Books expand my imagination, which then formulate my own words on to paper, which in turn forces myself and others to think, which then result in growth and improvement. So if you take away books you take away the very part of my soul that strives for perfection. If you take away books, you will force me to settle for mediocrity. If you take away books you take away my sense of wonder. My need to find out more knowledge, more ideas, more viewpoints. And in turn, the more I find out, the more I realize how much I really don't know. But there is irony here because when I stop reading, when I stop searching, when I stop yearning, when I stop imagining, my soul dries up and only the mind takes over. This is never good. Because the less I know, the more my mind thinks it knows. Then conversations become mundane and the simplest problem can expand into the most prevalent argument. Drama and kaos take over, time runs out too quickly, and I lay my head down on my pillow at night wondering if the conversations I took part in that day really improved my well being. No. Because I let my books get dusty, which caused my brain to soak up useless information instead, those found on flat boxes with talking heads, or robots with an iPhone addiction, or the latest scoop on celebrity gossip. When you take away books, you take away much more than paper filled with words. You take away our ability to converse, our ability to think, our willingness to improve, and you cause us to settle.
If you take away books, you have a world full of narcissists, walking around with phones enmeshed in their hands, and other people's ideas enmeshed in their brains. If you take away books you have a world full of people too busy to talk about anything deeper than surface level; if you don't have time to read, you definitely don't have time for "good conversation". If you take away books, you take away imaginations, people's ability to sit and day dream, to conjure up a story plot, a new goal in life, a good deed to perform. If you take away books, we will settle. I know we will settle. Because without books in this society, people will never know the stories of those before us. Those people who knew that pure timelessness will get you further in life than cramming your schedule with "things to do", which in the end are useless acts that somehow take priority to things that are important.
Consider yourself a seed, and your environment the soil. Without books raining down on you, shining upon you, causing you to sink your roots deep into the soil, all you will be is a seed, and all you will consider yourself is a seed, and you will only associate yourself with other seeds. And the life of a seed is all you will know. Your ability to grow will never be realized. You have the potential to flower, to branch, to shade others, if only you take the time to expand the mind. Sometimes the best education we can receive is the one we give to ourselves. Read, reflect, and soak up the world in a way that seems to be going extinct. Just read.
