February 19th, 2007

Reading Books

With a zillion channels to choose from with television, the internet, and books on cd it seems actually sitting down and reading a book is so yesterday! I was reading an article that featured Bill Gates and he was asked by the reporter “what’s the future of a print medium like ours?” Bill Gates responded by explaining that the next thing they are after is textbooks, because you can take the money spent on textbooks and put that into buying tablet devices for all the kids, they have less to carry around and it can be more easily customized, more interactive. That sounds great for educational purposes. But it got me thinking these men and women with great minds and ideas usually feed off each other, one comes up with a great purpose for their invention and another takes it to the next level, sometimes for good and other times we think do we really need something else that is getting us away from ourselves! I wonder if this textbook idea takes off how long it will be until we actually have no use for books of any kind. How sad would that be! Or maybe it’s just my age of 37, where we grew up reading books and actually enjoying it! Having that book in hand and opening the pages that hold a new thought, new words to learn, or somewhere to take your mind to a magical world, a funny place, a mystery to try and solve or walk you thru the history of someone’s life seems irreplaceable to me. Books open the doors to so many possibilities; the words on their pages can be life changing. Our mind needs moments to re fuel to let go of everything that is clogging our thoughts and one of those favors you can do for your mind is to go somewhere quite and get lost in a really great book, for awhile you can be somewhere else as your mind enjoys taking those words and bringing them to life in your mind, giving your mind a mini vacation! With all the technology that is yet to come and improve our lives, my hope is none of it will replace our own imaginations or replace the value of thinking and even questioning the words on the pages of books that help this to be A Wonderful Life!

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