Why you should read instead of watch

With the omnipresence of various television programmes and movies to satiate our need for visual entertainment, how many of us still read?

By reading I don't mean scrolling through the neverending feeds of social media, reading about why a certain clothing brand is the best, people's unyielding arguments online or about a friend's latest shenanigans in a new foreign country. I mean pick up a book, sit down in a coffee shop and just let the world around you drone into this blur. When you read, you teleport from the place you are at into this fictitious wonderful world. A world which you conjured, where the trees can be blue and the stream flowing a baby lavender. Where pigs can fly and the sky's not even a limit. You can step into a closet and find yourself in a winter wonderland called Narnia, travel through time and places, and possess any powers you can ever fathom.

Reading lets you escape into a world where the most magical things can happen. You are the owner of your imagination, and the places you travel to are limited only by the parameters of your imagination - which runs infinite across galaxies.

Reading feeds your soul, your creativity. It fuels your lust for wonder and excitement. You watch as the black and white combinations of words on the page transform into a picturesque scene. The author tells one story, but you interpret and view it as your own. Different people can look at the same words and see distinct images. You see what you read, and what this ability to change what someone writes into moving images in your mind is amazing.

It's the best gift I have ever discovered ever since I was reading Enid Blyton as a little girl. As a young child the fertility of your imagination is discovered as you dive into the experience of creating your own little world, a little bubble to escape to, everytime you pick up a book. It's a world which you create alone, but you never truly are. You're surrounded with mystical creatures, heroes, villains and talking animals. You witness magic, enchantment and wanderlust. This sense of power and awe that one experiences through reading is probably the reason why a movie has never been better than the book. One can never find a series of motion pictures put together by the best director, characters depicted by the best actors/actresses Hollywood can buy, better than the scenes produced by the spinning wheels of one's imagination.

It's a lost art, with ebooks and online articles and the glamorization of visual entertainment. Put down your movie tickets, iPads and handphones. Pick up a book.