BGM: The Other Two - Selfish
Why do I read so many books? I have been using the Japanese web service bookmeter, which says I have already read almost 1500 books in these 9 years (about 3000 days.) When I was a child, I had not read such many books usually (although it had been already a terrible period so I can't remember how my childhood could be.) I remember that the first book I could have got into was Stephen King's "The Body", the one my elder sister had. From that one, my sweet reading life had begun.
And when I was a high school student, accidentally I met Haruki Murakami's paperback a classmate of mine had been reading. I started reading his "Norwegian Wood", and that led me to read various great masterpieces by him. I had been bullied by (or simply isolated from) so many classmates, therefore reading was only way for me to release my soul, and also keep my mind normal and fresh.
After these painful days, I went to a university and started reading more and more. I can remember - at the small single room as a cell at my apartment near by the college, lying my back on its wall, I had been into various books so diligently. I had studied American literature at there, and could have made almost no friend. Just reading and listening to. That style was my youth.
And now - Sometimes, when I am reading books at AEON, people ask me why I do read books so seriously ("Are you studying something to become any great man?") and how many books I have read in my free time usually. To answer them, I have to say this fact - I have not had any future stage in my mind I want to be on. I just have been doing what I want to do, and that's all.
Maybe, I am just a miserable person because I have not had any sweet, graceful romance in my life. But I say this has been my life. I won't say that reading is a sublime hobby for us (there are so many ways to kill our boredom or feel certain pleasures.) But I can't expect I will stop this behavior - In a way, books are great soul foods for me (or better things which bring me a certain chemical, bigger pleasure than them.)
