I really love reading, because it's one of the only hobbies that I can just totally immerse + myself into without worrying at all about anything else. Reading for fun is literally like + getting teleported into a world of peace, comfort, and exhilaration, being able to enjoy a lifetime + of exhilarating events in just a few hours.
+The thing I love about it the most is that it feels like it even makes real life more exciting, + because you can start to see how even the mundane everyday is just like a book, too! + It might be a bit embarrassing, but at times I do end up mimicking heroes from the books + I've read, and in my opinion it ends up all the better for it, since it imbues my + usually more aimless conversation with passion and enthusiasm... in any case, + it can help to animate even a boring moment by likening it all to just a fragment of the + overall very exciting storyline. +
+In that way, I must say I take a special loving to light novels, because + they eschew all the complicated bits of using any overly flowery language (unlike me…) and get directly + to the drama, suspense, character action, and the like! The juicy bits! I even used to basically + desire the same thing from regular books, since I remember skim-reading some of the early Harry Potter + books (a bit before I was really grown-up enough to read them) and only reading the dialogue!
+No matter what, I wouldn't mind being able to just read fiction every day for many hours, although + sometimes other things do get in the way. The greatest joy of having gone on holiday and sworn + not to use my laptop was being able to throw all those distractions away and read for at least 4 hours + a day, not by force, but totally out of my own desire, and it was great. I felt like I enjoyed myself + unbelievably well, and learnt a lot of new words and funny turns of phrase along the way. +
+And reading also gives you a time of slow pause, to let you drink in the nuances of language + and to think about what each word means. Unlike a movie, it won't skip ahead without you, + and in that regard it's totally at your own pace, letting you also match your thinking and reading + together to go as fast or slow as you want. Moreover the imagery I'm able to see because of + even the simplest of texts is so beautiful and stunning and immersive, I'm just ashamed + I haven't been making more use of this ability until more recently! +
+I've fallen into various periods where I've not read awfully much, which has sadly + atrophied my vocabulary over time; it probably peaked in year 11, where I'd known so + many words as to always leave an impression on my English teacher. If I had to repeat my essays + today, I'm not so sure I'd still be anywhere near as compelling… but, that's at least a little bit + excuses by the thought that in the meantime, I have read in Japanese and German a fair bit, + and I've been able to instead focus on learning to read those two more naturally, even to the detriment + to my vocabulary in any one of them. It is my ultimate goal to master all of them, though, + so I don't intend to compromise like this forever, at any rate. +
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