05 30 25 - Books

Literature is a form of art that's often looked down on. Whilst the art of music has grown to be bigger than ever, and forms of physical art are still strongly loved, people have shoved most forms of literature to the side. Suddenly, only nerds pick up books, and the only writing ever done is required for a classroom assignment or college application. Even then, it has become so common to turn to AI to write the simplest sentences.

Even for me, it's been a while since I've picked up a book. Despite knowing I have plenty of time to read or to write, part of me aches knowing that it doesn't come as naturally to me as it used to. The thing I was once so passionate for has suddenly become a lost skill that I don't use nearly enough. 

I spent the majority of my life writing stories. Whilst I never finished most of them and they weren't the greatest thing ever written, I had a passion for it. Writing was one of my favorite things to do, and I knew I wanted to incorporate it into my future. I'd give anything to be able to become an author. To finally put my many ideas into words.

But I still pulled away from that. Because as much as I wanted it, it wasn't realistic, not at all. Journalism was my second choice. It was more reliable, and I would still get to write as much as I wanted to. Still, the career rate for it is going down, and I had to stray away from choosing something that I was so passionate about. 

I wish I could emerge myself into literature the same way that I was invested when I was in middle school. I'd spend so much time, writing out stories and characters with such complex lives, all of which related to me, in one way or another. Reading books and finding the characters that I shared so much in common with. Almost always, I found myself building onto other characters, almost as if I was fitting myself into their lives.

Richie Tozier was Richie Tozier, but he was also more sensitive, because that's how I was. Sometimes the sharp words of his friends would hurt him more than he'd let on, but he always buried them away and instead let his emotions get the better of him. But how much of that was Richie Tozier, and how much if it was me? 

Maybe that was what I loved most about reading. Being able to uncover this new unique character with their own life, and being able to add onto that and read into every single line. Every word meant something to me, and unlike movies, I could twist it as much as I wanted. I could picture the characters to look like what I imagined, and to think the same things that I thought. Maybe that was why I preferred books to movies. 

Story telling is such a unique form of art that can be so complicated yet complex. While my love for writing was a constatn in my life, the form in which it was present in my life was constantly changing. Growing up, I wrote countless stories with made up characters and different scenarios. As I entered middle school, the characters in the stories shifted to the characters in my life. My writing suddenly became more real and I wrote about every little thing that happened in my life.

Sometimes I'd spent the whole night retelling my life to people that couldn't care less to listen, and othertimes, I could fill up an entire notebook with different entries about my life. The thing I loved most was how freeing it was to write about everything, knowing that no one would ever see it. I could write without feeling the urge to keep something locked away. It was simply to get the words out of my head and into sentences.

As I entered high school, I kept the habit of writing journal entries everyday, finding myself writinig about the good, the bad, and the new. I wrote so much that i began to run out of space to write it all down. Eventually, I became too busy and I no longer filled up notebooks. At most, i'd write once a week, but most of the times it was barely a month. 

Despite no longer writing journal entries every day, my love for writing was still present. I had begun to mess around with the art of poetry. It was something that I had stayed away from for a long time, knowing that I was no good at it. However, I began to mess around, turning my words into flowers and my emotions into rhymes. The words flowed from my head and whilst it was certainly the most difficult form of literature that i'd ever messed around with, I loved it. 

My poems felt like a complex code, translating my harsh emotions into words that were vague enough to still outline their meaning without giving away my feelings to anyone that read them. Even if my words weren't perfectly sharp and in sync, it let me put my emotions into words that I could show to others, without them ever understanding it. 

Despite turning to literature in many different ways throughout different points in my life, It served as the same constant escape from reality that I could count on. Wether it was turning myself into a character from my favorite book or telling the story of a made up person, I was able to find an escape from life when it was too harsh.

That was something I cherished dearly. While I could use literature as a way to escape reality, it could also serve for so many other purposes, catering to individuals. There's something for everybody. for the people looking to tell their stories, or for those who need a creative outlet to channel their energy into.

Maybe that's why it upsets me so much that literature is dying. Because it's so much than just words on a page for nerds. Emotionally, it's kept me sane for years, and before that, it was a way for me to speak. When I had nothing to say, I still had something to write.