It seems to be more and more often that I overhear someone questioning the real importance of reading. Mind you, these words come from all ages. As a result, I've done some thinking about what exactly I think the importance of reading is. I think the answer is so hard to put together because instead of asking, "Why should we read?" we should be asking, in fact, "Why do we read at all?"

There are all different reasons for settling in with a good book. Most people take comfort in reading so the silence can seclude their thoughts, and isolation from the real world can envelope their emotions for just a little while. Others swell their brain with words from textbooks and papers just to pass the next exam, even if it means forgetting it all the following morning. Whether due to leisure or academia, we read because when it's time to close the books we enter into a whole different place, our own personal library, where our thoughts reflect those books. We let the stories, proses, and research initiate our deepest thoughts and most powerful ideas.

Not convinced?

Step no further than the great thinkers of the past who have always shaped our emotions and fueled our passions. We spend hours reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle so that whenever we feel pressured, we can let Sherlock Holmes solve the mysteries for us. If we find no answers to nullify our anxieties, Aristotle would surely lend us his words of wisdom that would allow us to close our eyes and think outside of the box. Shakespeare has kindled the love in our passions, Ghandi has emulated the wisdom in our dreams, and Freud has contemplated the curiosity in our thoughts, so much that sometimes we're on the couch for days. But sometimes the answers to our questions or curiosities can't be found strictly through hard logic and fact. Instead, we have to follow Alice along the whimsical trails of her Wonderland, or spend the night dressed to the nines at Jay Gatsby's mansion. We need more than a walk in the woods with Thoreau to relieve our minds of its tight shoes and run barefoot into the vast meadows to ponder all of our free passions, dreams, and thoughts. We feel with and believe in these writers, characters, and their words, and therefore when their stories end or we settle in a bookmark for the day, it's because of them we believe in ourselves and all that our imaginations and ideas create.

Eventually, these books will each come to an end. In the meantime, each one will nurture the ever-present and ever-changing thoughts in our minds, our libraries, where they will assemble into one giant plot that is paradoxically shrinking and yet growing, and is forever being destroyed and created.

Shh! Respect the silence, and welcome to your library.