The philosopher A.C. Grayling wrote the following sentence in the Financial Times book review:
To read is to fly: it is to soar to a point of vantage which gives a view over wide terrains of history, human variety, ideas, shared experience and the fruits of many inquiries.
To read fine literature is to fly. We use our imaginations to enter new worlds and times. It is an activity that uses our highest faculties - empathy, sympathy and analysis. Reading challenges both the intellect and the emotions. And it goes beyond both these abilities into the realms of the spirit.
I started reading seriously when I was 16 years old. It all started with my history teacher who said something I will never forget. He said: "Don’t believe everything you read." With that he opened up vistas of potential within me. Before I read as a consumer, just taking it all in and blindly being led by the plot to the end of the book; after that moment I looked at books a new way. They were challenges, they were puzzles, they were arguments and they were examples of prosody. I learnt quickly how, even if mostly unconsciously, the reader is co-architect in the making of meaning. It is as the cliche goes that beauty is in the eye of the beholder - meaning is in the mind of the reader. What people chose to see in books reveals a lot about themselves. I have come to notice that this is particularly true of the terse prose found in the Bible. Some people read the Bible and take away love in their hearts for their fellow humans; other step away from the tome full of fire and brimstone and obsessive hatred for the foibles of human nature.
And that is my real point. As we let ourselves fly high on the words of the great novelists, poets and dramatists we also fly deep within. When we land again we must stop to inspect the self wisdom that the soaring has produced. Every great writer has been self-aware to the point sometimes sadly of desperation. They are aware of their art (and its failings) and of their own intellect and emotions. Kafka was never satisfied with what he wrote and intended to burn his manuscripts.
Not only does reading allow us to hold the mirror up to our own self, it also helps us to improve out communication skills. We live in the information age. Those that are skilful in using and presenting information will be those who succeed in this brave new digital world. It is a world where the grain must be separated from the chaff.
This website is intended as a forum for new writers. Their subject matters are diverse; their styles different; their arguments both original and re-workings of old concepts. It is hoped that the reader will spend the time to take to the skies and fly through these articles and by doing so learn more about him or herself and also take away some practical piece of information.
Finally, to keep on the same analogy of birds soaring, the English Romantic poet and visionary, William Blake wrote:
No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings.
So take to the sky, dear reader.
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