what makes reading different from any other activity?it makes one think. thinking at its peak.(note: the reading material should be mentally stimulating. not all books make people think.) when we say thinking, it means not just accepting facts as they come. if we look at the present scenario, it's all about tv and internet. instant information. what one sees, one accepts without thinking much. reading teaches an individual to ask questions. the right questions. this has become a generation of 'wiki brains'. making us far from intelligence. i remember an instructor relating his experience when he taught at a certain university. he gave his students a research project. about 90% submitted 'copy and paste' paper, complete with the links and ads on each page. what did the students learn? sometimes so much convenience could make learning difficult. there's a big difference between being intelligent and being an intellectual. intelligence is something innate. it doesn't stop with facts. it is more than acquiring knowledge. wiki does a lot of help though, but intelligence does not stop with it, it goes further. intelligence could sometimes be equated with wisdom itself.intellectual people know the answers, but they delve more on trivial matters, information which wouldn't really matter if we knew them or not. they appear to be wise because they know something. but talk about depth and they would not know what to say. these trivial information just eat up our memory storage. mental trash as we call it. reading should rather make us want more. it should make us realize that there is something more than these facts and figures. it deepens knowledge and gradually leads the individual to wisdom. reading should help us become intelligent.when we stop reading, we are choosing the road to mental stagnation. here is something which could help us improve and appreciate reading. something which could make us avoid mental stagnation.
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