READ

I awake everyday craving something to read. Its crazy cos I should not like reading cos I am lazy and I mean that in a diagnostic way. Yet I have to read or it will not be pretty. Or I am writing. Today, well, this week, really, I have read and been incredulous at some of what I read. I believe it was @Ikhide who said on Twitter that the best books he had read in a while were Facebook and Twitter, how very true.....NOT(lol!). 

Now, me, I read very heavy stuff for work as I am saddled in my day job with the responsibility of attempting to make sense of truly complex stuff for some young folk while nudging them in the direction of new knowledge in the difficult field of diagnosing animal diseases with radiological inventions many of which they have no access to. My work therefore takes the form of taking in huge amounts of complex convoluted stuff, digesting it into easier, less complex stuff and force-feeding my students with them in an attempt to stimulate their interest enough so they can go on a search for the true diagnostic tools they require to make a difference. The jury is still out on how successful I have been.

Now, anyone who knows me well has heard me say "I live on the internet' and I do. It is a constant source of friction between me and those who do not understand my fascination with it and many have given up attempting to dissuade me. The extent of my addiction (call it like it is) became clear to me when my friend visited and I had to surreptitiously check out the internet whenever she freed me up for longer than 3minutes at a time, which was rare (lol!) It made me understand how reclusive it makes one and how it is the perfect escapist hobby for me. More worrisome was the scenario in which we both were in the room, within  a foot of each other and instead of talking, we sent each other Facebook messages!

Reading consumes you but leaves you with a gift. I remember years ago when my baby cousin was born and a ceremony was being held to celebrate her naming and my aunt had asked me to watch over some tumbling chickens in her apartment 2stories up while a rocking Nigerian party was being held downstairs. I curled up in a chair in her living room and read a book I had discovered while the chicken tumbled and burnt to a rather more well-done-than-she-bargained-for crisp. When she came upstairs to ask how far with them, I jerked and jumped up from my spot on the sofa after she had to approach and shake me back from the tantalizing world I had stepped into and was she mad?! Her reason for being mad  though was hilarious to me at the time becos like all great people, she was merely affronted by the fact that I had not wandered downstairs to partake in the Naija party and so she assumed I had been having my own private chicken party upstairs but alas, I had not even checked on the chicken once! I was ....reading! Who does that? She wanted to know. Well, apparently, me!

One of the benefits of reading is knowledge. You know stuff. You learn stuff about stuff. Yes the knowledge may not be practical, but you will be informed and information drives ability, or at least, I perceive it does. The other thing about reading is that it frees you to let your imagination be all it can be. Now, I must give a caveat here, if you are unwilling to be excited beyond belief, dont do it! Do not read! That will be like getting in a pool of water and trusting you will not get wet! Impossible is what it is! I tell my friends to pls not encourage my imagination by telling me half stories or teasing me, I can take the story from there and build upon it and when I bring it back, it will be unrecognizable. It is also the reason my addictions are not pretty, they have more than enough fuel!

The other thing about reading is that it enables you to reason for yourself and make informed choices. It bestows an open mind upon you and that is no mean feat! The reason I say this is that open minds make for rationally thinking people and this makes for an educated populace. Educated populations are able to make change in their situations and do the needful. Which brings me to my other great passion- Nigeria. We are the way we are today becos we are not reading as much as we should or maybe it is that we are not reading the right things. This became apparent to me about me when I recently rediscovered writing and reading for enjoyment. I lost the ability to enjoy reading when I entered Vet School and got bogged down with more information than I could utilise in 3lifetimes. So, I did the smart thing and gave it up but for the mindless romance books I sometimes would escape into but which took all of 30minutes to chew up and left me feeling so guilty that I would over-compensate by plunging myself deeper still into scientific drivel. 

Anyway, I recently became aware of my illiteracy where the Arts were concerned and I am doing something to remedy it. The danger with this type of deficiency is that one is blissfully unaware of one's ignorance and that is so commonplace in Nigeria today. We have (by my estimation!) the largest number of educated illiterates in the world, methinks and that is something that needs no scientific data to prove. The proof is in the inability to make change happen in our circumstances. We all are aware of what needs to change and how it needs to, but seem unable to make the transition from knowing to doing. This, I believe only occurs when we are so educated, that we are illiterate. 

This is why I advocate reading. It is a cure all, I believe. It can heal our hurts and open our minds. It can equip us to do and be whatever it is we conceive of in our hearts. I shudder to think we all will keep paying lip service to the change required and never muster enough to do, because smart as we are, we do not know what it is we need to do. Nigerian education is deficient in that way. It streamlines you before you need to specialize and makes you into a bogeyman of sorts. The smart ones know what to do to get by and beat the system, the not-so-smart(?!) ones keep wondering when they will be smart enough to beat the system. Every Nigerian parent should begin now to make change happen by reading and making their children read.  For pleasure, for education outside of school, for life! Everywhere. This is where the salvation of Nigeria lies.

Please read a book today!