I am a late entrant to the world of books and literature in general. Two years ago, a friend gifted me a new Kindle. I already had an old Kindle with me and these devices last long but still, my friend gifted me one on my birthday to motivate me to read. And it just worked. I started reading and it became a beautiful part of my life.
Recently I finished reading the book ‘Lives not Lived’. It is a simple and lucidly written book with a plot that penetrated my heart. The end of the book shook me up and made me restless. I felt a pain deep within and badly needed a distraction.
I went to my Kindle Library and started going through the books in my reading list to decide what to read next. While scrolling, I accidentally entered the ‘settings’ section of the Kindle. These e-book readers are pretty simple devices with not too many settings to play with. I had never felt the need to make any tweaks to the settings since I got the device. But now I had stumbled upon a setting which said ‘Show Clock While Reading’. It let me toggle between showing or not showing the current time on the page I would be reading.
It was such a simple thing, but I found it hard to decide. I love the process of reading a book. Imagining the locations, picturing the characters, being part of the scene, and feeling the emotions! Every book takes me along with it for a unique ride. And here my Kindle was asking me if I wanted to be aware of my ‘present time’, my real life during this beautiful journey!
My days are time-tagged. All my close friends know, at any particular time what exactly I would likely be doing – waking up, hitting the gym, getting ready, working, taking a lunch break, enjoying my coffee break, reading something, writing – I do everything at a fixed time of the day. Over the years, I have felt proud of my disciplined life and have encouraged my friends to follow the same. I have always felt that this organized way of living helps me achieve a lot in the limited time we have in a day. Yet, today I was hesitant to place a ‘constant clock’ on my reading page. Finally, I took a call. I decided that I will turn on the clock setting on my working days and will turn it off on my weekly day off.
When I am not working, I like to travel in the world that any book creates for me, forgetting about the time and the real world around me. This pleasure is incomparable and I would like to keep it unadulterated by the reality. For me it’s reading, for others it may be painting, or singing, or playing a musical instrument, or cooking, even coding, or many more passionate activities that create such a world and make them forget the reality and time. And give them an incredible feeling of pure joy and indulgence. All our lives we run by the clock to achieve so-called accomplishments and happiness just to realize that real happiness lies in things that make you forget the ‘time’!
