One of my friends asked me the other day, “What’s the use of books when AI exists? What’s the point of reading books? You can get all the information you want at the click of a button. So why do you read books? Why do you write, too? Books will be irrelevant in 5-10 years. So what’s the point?”
I smiled and simply replied, “I read and write because I love both.” There’s no cost-benefit analysis in that. I wanted to say more, to justify this ‘act’ of mine, but I thought it wiser to let it go. After all, how do you explain to someone that some joys need no justification?
Because, truly, the experience of reading and writing is something that words often struggle to capture. How do you describe the fascination of creating something new? The thrill of peering into the depths of someone’s innermost feelings through their words? How, in just a few lines, someone can touch the deepest, most secretive parts of your soul without ever knowing you?
So often, I feel disheartened when people are surprised to see me spend money on a new book. I wish I could make them see that reading isn’t a burden or chore—it’s something I genuinely want to do. It’s an experience like no other.
I still dream of having a library of my own someday, and I hope that dream comes true. If there’s one thing I truly want in life, it’s to sit among people who love books as much as I do—spending whole days in silence reading, discussing the books we’ve read, and sharing the pure joy that comes from both the individual and collective experience of reading.
We all strive to find kindred spirits in our lives, and if I had one wish, it would be this: to find people who understand how magnificent the experience of reading really is. People who appreciate the beauty of a single line of poetry. People who can sit and read for hours without craving a hit of dopamine every other second.
All this is to say that I love books—unequivocally and unapologetically. I love reading. I love writing. I love creating something new and experiencing the creations of others. I love sharing the books I’ve read or the things I’ve written. Because connections like these last a lifetime- a connection between strangers who might never meet, bound together by the words written on a page.
And oh, how beautiful such a connection can be.
Photo by Alexei Maridashvili on Unsplash
The Quest for Essence 