Reading is, like, WORK and stuff

Lael and I are discussing people who readily admit they don’t read and how numerous that group is becoming.

I told him that I’m always shocked when someone admits to me he or she doesn’t read. I know I look positively floored, absolutely flabbergasted. In fact, I’m assuming I probably look like they just admitted to me that they chop up visiting Mormons and keep the pieces in small boxes in the back of their closets.

I know it’s biased, but, to me, there is nothing more revolting than someone saying, “Oh, I don’t read.” Worse than, “Oh, I don’t believe in brushing my teeth” or “I don’t own a speck of deodorant” or “Yeah, I send money to Pat Robertson at least twice a week.”

It makes me shudder.

Lael’s response was, “It really is amazing the number of otherwise intelligent people who choose not to read, though. I’m beginning to think Neil Postman was right; we’re moving toward a post-literate future. We’ll be like old wizards who manage to be able to read the ancient runes.”

So, it’s weird to have a 35-item “to read” list then? It’s strange to search for linguistics books on the Internet? It’s wrong to crack open “Charlie & the Chocolate Factory” in the doctor’s waiting room when everyone else is staring at that insipid health channel or thumbing through two-year-old People magazines? It’s bizarre to choose a good Buddhist tome over the reruns of CBS’ “Eye on America” that permeates the modern airplane adventure?

In fact, airports are really the only place I see people reading anymore, and that number gets smaller and smaller as more and more TVs get put into terminals across the country. They could stare at Reagan’s casket for four hours without ever thinking about cracking a book’s spine.

That doesn’t scare anyone else? Really?