The Bigger Picture:There is a joy in reading, although I never knew it. For me, it was always a chore I dreaded that made me feel physically sick and left me exhausted afterwards, writes Shalini Sinha.
And yet, reading is our access to alternative knowledge - knowledge deeper and more intricate than what's explored in the video and conversational realm. To participate fully in and take charge of our own health, access to this knowledge is essential.
Knowledge is power. Being able to access the greatest body of knowledge - millions of books, going back thousands of years - provides you with a personal and social power.
Almost all my life, however, I struggled to read. My struggle arose not because of my intellectual capabilities, but because of fearful experiences I endured that took place at the time I was being taught to read. As a result, any time I tried to read, I just felt fear.
The revulsion I felt towards reading was so intensely physical, I thought I couldn't read. And yet, I did know how. I simply couldn't make myself do it.
In the world of health, in particular, healing traditions really are built on philosophies, politics, trials and errors, assumptions, clinical experiences and religious beliefs.
Always with medicine, knowledge is growing and changing. Being able to read and inform one's self, then, becomes critical to facilitating your own health and decision-making.
There was a humiliation for me around not reading. That's what spawns the coping strategies and secrecies. I could hide it well - I achieved highly as an academic, receiving credits and accolades.
My intelligence rescued me, allowing me to apply a high level of insight and analysis to my works. Because I could learn and achieve, because I was intelligent and could really grasp concepts, because I was articulate (these messages were clearly handed down to me as an Indian child growing up), and because I hated it so much, I didn't have to face what a loss it was not to read.
Secrets are what make a struggle really powerful. Knowing this, I made a conscious choice to challenge the boundaries of my "closet" and come out as someone who struggled to read. Sometimes I showed extra flair in my explanations and managed to solicit a response of admiration and amazement.
Other times, when my energy was lower, I received the pity and distance from the uncomprehending "readers".
"How do you acquire knowledge if you don't read? How can your insight be genuine or your analysis credible if you have no idea of the depths of the world?" they would ask. The answer is that my insight and analysis have come from a deep love for and study of people - a depth sometimes missing in books.
It seems to me that a struggle with reading can often have more to do with a person's social context than their intellect.
Poverty and other social circumstances can create a pressure to focus away from education and towards other elements of life.
Trauma (as in my case) can affect one's ability to learn. A family history of lacking skill, and so confidence, in this area can be handed down and repeated.
As a teenager, I supported several young people with learning disabilities. One boy with dyslexia comes to mind. His parents invested in the support of a psychologist, who specialised in teaching methods of learning designed to think within dyslexia.
I could see, however, that even with all this structural support, that boy struggled with his confidence and self-belief. Once he found a reason to read, and a loving perspective for himself, he found a way to do it.
It's deeply unfair that access to reading could be guided by environmental factors, particularly when you consider that anyone who struggles to read often internalises that there's something wrong with them.
It is more unfair when we come to realise how much power we have been selected out of because we lost that access.
This is the first year I now feel an excitement for reading. I also feel a loss - a grief - over the body of knowledge I am only beginning to access . . . the number of books I might have read by now, that all my peers have, and that no matter how much I want to read now, I can work only at the pace of one book at a time.
The journey to recover my reading was a conscious one over 14 years - engaging my self emotionally, physically, intellectually and spiritually. Finally, it wasn't until I acknowledged and integrated fully how humiliated I felt when I was small that the joy of reading began to flow for me.
Whatever the demons, they need to be let go in order for us to partake in the really meaningful resources of the world.
Shalini Sinha will be speaking on the experience of reading at the Ennis Library on October 16th. For further information, contact the library.