Random Burst of Moods and Inspirations: A Tale of My Reading Journey
I am living in a time where people gravitate towards experiences that can quickly trigger endorphins and provide instant satisfaction to our minds. That’s why social media apps, such as Tiktok, which contains many short exciting video clips holds such a big appeal in the modern world. I don’t think blog posts, like the current one I am writing, are popular anymore. Not many people will want to sit down in a corner to read a long lengthy piece of words anymore.
Well, maybe there are still people who like to do that. But not many.
Not even me, at times. As I discovered. Sometimes it is indeed much more entertaining to watch videos, where I can laugh and derive short moments of happiness.
Life before the advent of social media was so different. A time before Social Media and Smart Phones. Maybe before the year 2010?
Since I was in kindergarten, I really loved learning about new stories, whether through listening or reading. I remember I would often sleep to a CD playlist of short stories, emitted by a small radio, by my bedside. Reading was a favourite hobby of mine. I remember my mother used to bring me and my siblings to the library frequently when we were younger.
I also remember the adrenaline rush I always felt whenever I managed to hunt down a book, that I had been looking for, on the shelves. That highly anticipated sequel to my current book. Some of my childhood favourites were: The Mandie Book series. Little House on the Prairie Book series. Felicity Wishes Book Series. A Series of Unfortunate Events. Anne of Green Gables. And many many more.
Books provided a respite from my daily mundane life in Singapore. They fuelled my imagination and enabled me to learn more about other cultures. For example, the Mandie book series introduced me to Cherokee and entertained me with tales of mysteries and adventures. Little House on the Prairie Book series gave me a glimpse of how living in the American Midwest was like. Felicity Wishes made me wish I was a fairy. A Series of Unfortunate Events introduced me to the injustices of the world and taught me to appreciate intelligence. The Anne of Green Gables gave me a glimpse of life in beautiful Canada with its beautiful metaphors and detailed descriptions.
Reading these stories told me that there was much more to my microscopic view of the world, and fuelled my ambition to develop the desire to see and understand the world for myself one day.
Well, initially my mother bought my siblings and I to the library because she wanted us to read more books and improve our language skills. I remember my mother telling us that it was really important to learn English. Otherwise, we would have difficulties in school or finding work when we grew up.
Back then, before starting Primary School, I wasn’t really good at English. I only spoke Chinese at home and hence naturally, I had a very strong preference for reading only Chinese books. However, because English was used as the main medium of instruction in Singapore, I knew I had to switch gears and force myself to read English books so that I wouldn’t fall back behind my peers.
Well I didn’t really start reading English books “properly” until I was in Primary two (eight years old), if I recall correctly.
I think I still can roughly remember how one of my first English book, which I picked up from the shelves, looked like. It had a sky blue cover with cartoonish fonts (maybe worms design?). I don’t remember the title or the story plot. But I remember being proud of myself for picking up an English book that I considered to be “thicker” — and hence more advanced (I assumed) than the usual books that I read.
That moment kickstarted my lifelong passion for reading English books, mostly fiction books when I was younger and now venturing into non-fiction books to seek life advice and understanding of the world.
Looking back, if there is one thing that I regret, I would say that I regret the move to completely replace my reading list of Chinese books with English books.
After I started deriving joy from reading English books, Chinese books fell out of my radar completely. Somehow, I lost interest in reading Chinese books.
I think it could be that there were more variety and selections of English books than books in any other languages in the Singapore public libraries which led me to make the switch. Maybe it also had to do with the fact that I was being exposed to more English than Chinese in school. All my subjects in school were conducted in English and I only took a few hours (probably less than 3 hours) of Chinese lessons every week. While I continued to speak Chinese at home daily, my proficiency in English was definitely improving at a faster rate than my proficiency in Chinese.
I only got back into reading Chinese books after I graduated from University in 2021.
Well, all along I had been drawn to learning more about my own Chinese roots and culture. However, I was mostly reading and learning about them from English medium materials. And hence after graduation, I thought that I should invest time in brushing up my Chinese reading skills so that I could one day, possibly read the original works of prolific Chinese writers. Of course, maybe it sounds easier than it really is. Ancient Chinese writers wrote in 文原文, which is different from modern Chinese.
But anyway, I really wanted to improve my Chinese reading skills and hence, I decided to plunge into starting the journey of borrowing Chinese books from the library. I started to keep a notebook where I would write down the meanings of foreign words that I encountered. It took me some time for my eyes to get accustomed to reading a huge text of Chinese characters.
Initially, I had to keep pausing my reading and search the dictionary to find the meanings of foreign words that I encountered. It was disruptive. However, slowly but surely, I finally got back to the same level of comfort I used to feel when reading Chinese books when I was younger. I am glad.
You may ask, why did I become so “rusty” in reading Chinese characters if I spoke the language on a daily basis? I guess, speaking and listening is different from reading and writing.
As I studied “Higher Chinese” for my O’ Levels, I was exempted from studying Chinese when I entered Junior College at seventeen. This meant that I only received ten years of an already minimal amount of Chinese language education. By the time I graduated from university, there were already six years that I didn’t read lengthy texts of Chinese characters.
I know I shouldn’t put the blame on the Singapore education system, but I do think it has a very big impact on me and why I lost touch with reading Chinese books. I think I just have slight regrets about myself not putting enough attention to this matter previously. Oh well..
Anyway, the point of this article is that reading was a really big part of my childhood. It provided me with a window of escape from my dreary boring life. Books were also my teachers, introducing me to characters who are so interesting and whom I will never encounter in my real life.
Today, I mostly only read non fiction books and books continue to give me my regular dose of wisdom and even act as a compass for my direction in life. Sometimes when I feel unmotivated or lost in life, I will turn to reading books to hear other people’s voices and perspectives. Books are a great antidote to my “de-motivations”. I am thankful for the invention of words and books.
However I must also add, due to long hours of reading books (including in a moving car), it has unfortunately caused me to have very bad myopia. Maybe I shouldn’t be so thankful for it.
On another thought, I also want to caution against falling into the habit of just reading and absorbing knowledge passively, but not practising what I have learned. I think that if I don’t apply what I have learned from books or remember what I have read, then I am not sure what’s the point of spending hours reading. On second thoughts, maybe I shouldn’t worry too much about this. The process of reading can be enjoyable too. Even if I forget what I have read or don’t apply them, at least I got to enjoy the process of reading.
The end of this article.
Note 1
By the way, recently I have been trying to figure out how other Medium writers can acquire so many subscribers. I think that, even though I have been writing frequently, there are many reasons why I don’t have much followers:
(1) I don’t write very well.
(2) The topics I post about are random and not focused. My posts are like my online diaries and they don’t benefit the reader. One day I talk about a book, another day I publish a post related to Leetcode or tech.
(3) Medium algorithms are not working in my favour to improve the visibility of my articles. I was thinking, I could request to be added as a writer in Medium Publications, so that my articles will be shown to a wider audience. To a certain extent, I think they do help but I am not sure. However, I am going to try doing this in my future articles. In fact, the previous article I wrote is already listed in a Medium publication.
I don’t think I will put this article in a publication because it is too random and I don’t think it falls under any category. Also, I didn’t start writing because I wanted to have followers. Of course, I am not denying it would be nice to be able to hit 100 followers and earn some passive $$$$.
Note 2
Once in a while, I get a sudden burst of energy and inspiration to create something. It can be the desire to write, to paint, to sketch, to colour, or to take photographs or videos of the beautiful things around me.
Other times, I think about the goals and dreams I have for myself. Then, I start to feel an inner drive to push myself to work on things that I think can help me become closer to achieving them. It could be a renewed motivation to continue to work on an “abandoned” coding project, read books or learn new things.
However, there are also days when I don’t feel like doing anything. I just want to consume social media, like 小红书 Xiaohongshu or Youtube, and let myself 摆烂。But these sessions usually culminate in feelings of guilt, and I feel bad for letting myself fall to the addiction of the constant mindless scrolling on my phone.
I guess I am also human. I can’t expect myself to be always so motivated. I need sessions of “unproductivity” to recharge and gain new inspirations.
Actually I didn’t really plan out to write this article but I guess I really felt the urge to write something. This article is just a product of me going with the flow and writing down some of my thoughts as they come. It has evolved into a piece about my reading journey. A sudden burst of inspiration to reflect on my own reading habits.
