Being a bookworm in a world that praises mindless television shows and meaningless movies can make you feel a bit like an outsider. I am not saying all books compose some dire importance, but the action of reading definitely engages the mind more than watching something or listening to something.

Reading is slowly becoming a dying hobby. Scary enough, that was the pitfall in Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel, "Fahrenheit 451." The people lost interest in books and found interest in the heavily governmentally censored tv shows. Slowly, the people grew dumber, lost their sense of liberty, and let the government practically brainwash them.

Dystopian novels display a radical exploration of a small truth, so I am not saying that the common tendency to pick up a remote rather than a book will lead to world destruction tomorrow. But beneath the dystopian society in "Fahrenheit 451," the underlying factor of literary ignorance is creeping into American society today.

Books have so much to teach us. Books allow you to explore a different life, maybe someone from a different racial background or ethnicity, a different financial standpoint, or a different continent. Books provide us with the tools to become well-rounded individuals, see things from other perspectives, and thus help us develop a stronger sense of empathy.

Psychologists at the New School for Social Research discovered that reading literary fiction improved empathy levels more than any other genre, mostly due to the complexity of literature. Literary fiction, as opposed to genres such as romance and thrillers, forces the readers to consider the motives of characters. Nothing is spoon-fed; most characters are open-ended, leaving the reader to interpret meaning and motive. In literary fiction, you're not only taking a walk in someone else's shoes, you're dwelling in their minds.

Literature also helps us with our process of decision making. I'm not saying that reading a book will turn you into a morally correct, squeaky clean saint, but there is wisdom that comes from learning from the lives of literary characters. It is also important to note that you don't have to agree with everything you read; I certainly don't. But understanding why you feel opposed allows you to become introspective and in-tune with your own beliefs and reasoning.

Reading works of Shakespeare taught me I don't want to be so hung up in love that I make terrible decisions like Romeo and Juliet. I learned that I don't want to be so vengeful that I go mad, leading to the death of pretty much everyone around me like Hamlet. There is much to learn from the decision making of literary characters.

Literature isn't dead. The fact that people still read works from hundreds of years ago says something about its importance. Reading isn't lame or boring like many say it is. It has so much value: yesterday, today, and forevermore.