Not Reading for Three Days (or Months!)

I recently feel kinda lost. I can’t focus on reading, and I found myself failing to read any books outside class (truth is, not much on the textbooks either). Old Chinese philosophers said something like this “If you stop reading for three days, you look disgusting and you talk like sxxt. (I know their wording has more classic, but forgive me given the fact that I failed to read for so long)” As lazy as I am, I realized I would never become the most hard working guy in the world. To my surprise, I do share the same feeling with our ancestors now, especially I haven’t really read for quite a while.

To analyze my symptom, I put together several factors and reach a conclusion: Durham is too quiet.

As boring as it is here, you would have nothing to do but surfing on the Internet. As time goes by, you are used to only read huge amount of info on the Net in a very short period of time. You wouldn’t even feel that your ability to read and appreciate a book is losing. You also spend too much time on Facebook and MSN and Youtube. Many times that you didn’t even finish reading a webpage but you already turn to the other one.

Even if in the rare occasion that you are not on the Net, you discuss more gossips rather than other meaningful conversation. You know, if you are in a small town, and everyone knows everyone in the community. Plus there are not too many places to hang out. Gossips go around too fast. You can’t blame us for gossiping too much in this sense.

Speaking of not too many places to go, another old Chinese saying is: “Traveling for thousands of miles is better than reading thousands of books.” It’s so clear that you don’t get to discover exciting events here in Durham, therefore we lost the chance to gain knowledge.

Just to remind all of you that I have not been reading for more than three days, so you know I am bullshxting….