Lives of Readers

          A great number of people living on earth have come across that quote which says readers live more than one lives during lifetime, in contrast to those who don’t read living only one. We can, in fact, expand the meanings of this quote beyond the domains of the literal “reading” – to the “words” of music, the “strokes” of a painting, and the “digits” of a science. So wherever I say read, I mean much more than just reading from paper or screen.

          When you have read the biographies of a dozen great lives, and have “lived” with the characters of a great novel, and have “watched” an influential role in a great movie, your mind starts performing an imperceptible magic: it starts impregnating a new ideology of life: of how life should be lived and what should be done and what should not. Picking all the morals and values and ideas from those infinite sources, it gives birth to a new character, and really growing into that character becomes your calling, your purpose in life.

          I remember watching a movie character who had a thick attachment with his land, which by the bye was disputed, and that character’s whole life revolved just around that piece of land which, seen from a larger perspective, happened to be very small. He had fights with his cousins, there were murders, deceptions, revenges, and at the end that character was killed by his own son for that same piece of property.

          In short, that man wasted his so precious life for a commonplace piece of land.

          Having watched that movie, my mind made a stiff belief that attachments when go beyond a frontier, turn toxic and start consuming life out of us. And it became a value of my life, a part of the character of my brain: not getting too attached to something, especially a piece of land.

          So a small watch taught me what my aimed character should not have.

          Talking of another example, when I read about Dumbledore from Harry Potter, his calm nature, his wisdom, modesty, devotion and truth, were received by my mind on chariots, as values that my final character should have for sure.

          Many religious leaders and prophets have travelled a lot – a lot; spreading their message and simultaneously knowing the beliefs of others. Guru Nanak Dev ji travelled thousands of kilometers on foot, for knowing the values of others and spreading his own en route. This teaches us a lesson: the sources of our knowledge and experience should be more than one. True readers know they have many.

          And when those true readers have lived so many lives virtually, they have derived a character they want to bake into. If the sources they have consulted have been more positive, they die good humans, and if more negative, they pass away what we call the bad ones.

          Therefore, even if it is one source, one book, one movie, one song: remember it is going to have an impact on your existence, however fractional. As the wiser ones will say, it’s a game of not chances but choices.