Overwhelmed and numb, reading for reading’s sake
31 March 2014(Reprinted from The Edge – Options pullout, 31 March 2014 issue)
Dear Kam,
I feel bad about this but I’m feeling exhausted by the MH370 disaster. I just want it to be answered. Does this make me a bad person?
Fading
The MH370 story has been unfolding in painful slow motion for several weeks now and I don’t know about you but it has left me feeling overwhelmed and numb. I didn’t know anybody on that flight but I have in my life lost somebody unexpectedly so I can understand something of the tragic hollowness that absence leaves behind, forever. I really want to move on but without ever forgetting or indeed forgiving. This has been a disaster on every level and mistakes were made that has left Malaysia open to ridicule and suspicion. I hope that questions will be asked in the future.
And so, in other news, Pakatan won the Kajang by-election, Russia has annexed Crimea for a Soviet reunion, the PM of Turkey has banned Twitter, Syria continues to collapse, an Egyptian court has sentenced 529 people to death for the death of one policeman, and Gwyneth Paltrow has split from her husband (Mr Coldplay-Paltrow). Life must go on, even if it feels like it should stop.
Dear Kam,
Is a reading culture overvalued? I get my history knowledge from games and my general knowledge from TV. The impression I get is that reading enhances knowledge. The last I checked, Harry Potter spells don’t really work.
Culture Vulture
You make a good point and I can’t argue with you. I only started reading when I was in my late 20s and that’s because Malaysian TV was so bad back in the 90s. Although I did watch it back then, I could never ever understand the point of WWF. But I hope you realise that Harry Potter is, er, fiction. It’s, you know, stuff that’s made up. If you think it’s real, then you will be disappointed. If that’s the case, then there are lots of books you must never read.
Perhaps it’s an Asian thing but there’s a belief that we should only do things if it has some educational value. The mantra is that students must only study and not be distracted by other things. I don’t agree with that, but I would say that because during my academic career, I did lots of the “other things” and very little of the studying. Studying is important but so is experiencing and enjoying life. Reading purely for the sake of enjoyment is valuable in itself. Being transported in your imagination to somewhere else can be fun. The fact that it’s actually improving your brainpower is incidental.
When students are being told to only concentrate on their studies then the implication is that the other stuff cannot be trusted. The textbooks are completely true and the other stuff, which cannot be overseen by somebody in authority, is probably wrong. Students are not encouraged to step off the path that has been laid out for them by a grown-up. Unfortunately, the grown-up might well be an idiot and that path might lead to nothing but unquestioning following and fear of the unknown. It is possible to not agree with everything you read. It’s not all correct and it’s not all true. Disagreeing with a text is a valuable lesson.
With that in mind I have to inform you that even if you practise really, really hard, you’ll never be able to represent Malaysia in Quidditch. But it would be fun if you could.
Reprinted with the kind permission of
