Picking up the pace

Interesting day today I must say.

First of all, I spent my morning in a stupor. How can your mind be on overtime but the rest of your body feel so tired is probably the most annoying thing in the universe.

Secondly, upon some reflection, I think my inability to learn to swim originates from a fear of asphyxiation/suffocation/not being able to breathe. This finds its foundation in that when I sleep, I have moments where I feel like my body is paralysed, and I'm struggling to get a breath but feel completely smothered. And so it becomes an intense struggle to regain consciousness, almost as if I'm limp under water or something. And then I wake up gasping for air. Before realising really that I'm not really gasping and that my body is in a breathable position - i.e. not buried in pillows. Although at this point, my heart is pounding quickly, and I've broken into a cold sweat.

Thirdly, Matt left for the US today. Sigh. There goes the cheese. What am I going to eat my corn with now?

Hehe. That was probably painful to read for some of you.

Fourthly, I am greatly looking forward to the release of Remedy. September 25th can't come any faster, can it? Although I'm also leaving Malaysia on that day for the UK, so the feelings are a bit mixed.

And now, after having a review of my day, I wish to rant on/discuss/discourse on the reason why reading is an unpopular activity. My opinion is that people are lazy to read simply because of the amount of brain power it takes. However, if it's reading a good fiction book, people can stay addicted to them. So I figured it boils down to one thing: interest. How can reading be made interesting becomes the logical question.

Well, I would think first of all, you would need to get a good book. However, it's easy for people to read Harry Potter. It's much harder to read the non-fiction stuff, or the 'deep' stuff as people would call it. Note the generalised use of people. So I suppose it's just a habit that has to be cultivated. I read somewhere that the slow person reads 200 words a minute, 3000 words in 15 minutes, 1095000 words a year if he reads for 15 minutes every day, if translated into pages, would be 3041 pages assuming that the average book has 360 words per page. Most books are at most 300 pages, which then translates into at least 10 books a year.

That is a staggering amount put into context. So I would say get some books and start reading 15 minutes a day. You'll be surprised how much you cover. And this assumes you read for just 15 minutes, slow enough to grasp everything.

And perhaps you might start to develop an interest for the things you read. If not, it's time to switch reading material.

And in fact, I do have a second insight. Or rather a second point of discourse: Do only-childs tend to seek the physical presence and acknowledgment of others more than those with siblings? I'll ramble about this further next post. The assumption here would be that the only-child in question is not of the introverted loner type, i.e. enjoys being by himself.