I’ve always enjoyed stories. Whether that’s by way of television, movies, games or book. The latter of which has sadly become a rather glaring omission in recent year’s. Sure I may not possess a natural discipline nor the concerted application required to fully savour a good novel, but I try. I find it difficult at times to recollect specific details, character motivations or equate the names and locations with the cognitive formations I’ve already associated with them. I also struggle to formulate sentences into a coherent visual identity, that I can understand or successfully navigate plot points, without having to read entire pages again. It is a peripheral vocation that has always interested me, but never enough to sway me from movie’s and games. There’s certainly a diminishing interest in scheduled reading, when measured against the extravagant appeal of a computer game. But there has always been a potent allure about filtering these narratives through your own irascible narration. It’s an intimate process, one that requires considerable creative vision and vigour to interpret the words, into a tangible story.

It’s almost collaborative in the way the author exhibits their vision onto the page with vivid specificity, while the reader interprets those details into something distinct. With even the most relatable qualities requiring the fertile imagination from the reciter to eloquently manifest these character’s with any success. If you are unable to evoke these situations, conjure location’s or associate characters with something visually stimulating, then all you are doing is reading words off a page. But what I’ve found during this sudden renaissance for written narratives, is just how motivated my brain has become.

We are routinely advised about the importance of maintaining a healthy diet. Chastised by the media for indulging in our culinary desires. With a flurry of passive aggressive statistics concerning the nutritional impotence of fast food and cake, that implores us to exercise our bodies and impede the natural decline of life expectancy. But rarely are we encouraged to motivate our cerebral muscles. Without persistent activity the mind stagnates. Afflicted by a precipitous atrophy that’s difficult to medicate, without the necessary stimulus to engage these lethargic synapses. My renewed fascination with the written word has liberated my own cognitive sterilisation. I’m more functional, though certainly not optimised. At least capable of a producing a coherent formation of words at least. This increase in reading has ensured that my writing isn’t as laborious as it has been in the past. Espousing a fluidity into my eccentric ramblings that wasn’t there before. I certainly don’t think I’ll be publishing the volume of material released by James Patterson. Nor anything as entertaining, but the correlation between a sharper vocabulary and increased reading, certainly isn’t incidental.

What I believe has facilitated this long suspended desire for text, is the conscious withdrawal from electrical devices. There’s an undoubted convenience afforded by digital forms of reading. Technology has afforded prospective bibliophiles an expedient process to procure literature electronically, with an ease and autonomy we’ve never had. But it lacks the affection provided by the physicality of a book. There’s something inherently cerebral and inhospitable about digitised books. Something very sanitary about it. Almost devoid of any intimacy that you get from physically turning the pages, rather than an idle swipe of the screen. To touch and feel the material is almost therapeutic. A meditative alleviation from the world, as you endeavour to experience a story in the solitary confines of your mind.

Really, I just want to enjoy the simple pleasures of reading, slow the pace of my burgeoning senility with a little intellectual stimulus before I’m afflicted by the inevitable onset of dementia. And maybe even learn a little something….maybe.