I learned to read when I was five. The problem is there wasn't a lot of reading materials in the house which, by today's standard, suitable for a child my age. I read whatever I can get hold of - Bisaya magazines, newspapers, etc.
Unlike the kids of today, I did not went through prep and kinder. I went straight to Grade 1. School was very exciting at first. I remember there was this thick Cebuano book which Mrs. Ybanez (my teacher) lent me and I finished reading it within a few days. After that, I found the Grade1 class so boring that my mother has to drag me back to the classroom. They should have promoted me to Grade 2. Instead my teacher made me tutor for the slow learners to keep me from fooling around, while the rest of the class was learning ba-be-bi-bo-bu. Maybe the teachers back then are so ignorant (or simply unconcerned) of how miserable I was being made to do the job which should have been done by my teacher. It was of course, a public school and my classmates were not the kids of parents who know better than my teacher.
I simply loved reading. During my free time, when I was not made to do household chore, I always escape into my grandparents house nearby where Lolo Pacio has a cabinet full of Reader's Digest old issues(1960's to 1970's). I think it was the easy format of RD which made me love reading. The articles were (and still are) short and stories are narrated with minimal effort to the young reader. It effectively introduced me to book stories which are condensed in a few pages. We had no TV at that time and my mother discouraged me from playing with neighbors - it's all work for me. Reading became a respite and opened me to new worlds, new ideas.
During high school and college, I spent most of my spare time in the libraries. Encyclopedias, magazines, books on literature, biographies, philosophy, politics, etc. It simply amazed me how ideas from people who have died (some hundreds of years ago) can be conveyed to us by such a very simple device - book. Forget God and his heaven, this is the real immortality - dead people speaking/arguing from their graves - Plato, Darwin, Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Machiavelli, Veblen, etc. Simply amazing!
I don't think I am a talented individual. If I was, I would have excelled in literature, academics, sports or other activities. I simply loved reading and leveraged the knowledge and information I gained from it to get what I wanted. Knowledge is absolute power and nothing can be as priceless as a piece of information that is known and understandable only to a few individual.
Why do I love reading? I don't know. The closest explanation could be because I am an introvert and a bit anti-social to boot. Reading is an activity that effectively shuts off social interaction. Don't get me wrong, I hate being an introvert and anti social tendencies should be discouraged from young people. But it's my nature and sometimes, I can't help it. Reading a book excuses me from talking to the people nearby. It educates you on human nature without having to interact with humans. Reading makes you understand the general qualities of man/mankind without being distracted by those of individuals close to you. Most of the people close to me are friendly, fair and mild mannered but I know people can be violent, unjust and vicious. Most of the leaders I knew are seemingly friendly and altruistic - but Machiavelli said otherwise and I believed him.
The present is a paradise for all those who love reading. Most of the written works are digitized and finding a book/piece of literature has never been easier and cheaper. Now, you don't have to go to the library or bookstore to read the book you wanted to read. Everything is in the internet and can be extracted in a text or voice format (ebook or audiobook). Reading (or listening to books being read to you) is just a click away.
This is the reason why I provided my daughter (and those dear to me) with devices which I believe will enhance her capability to read and gather information crucial to her life and her future. Some people simply call these "gadgets" - laptop, iPad, iPod, smartphone. To me these gadgets are today's electronic libraries. If my daughter is not smart enough to realize the REAL uses of these devices and the value of reading, then she has nothing to blame but herself. I have provided her what I believed to be the most important tools/facility she can have at the most important period of her life. It's not wealth/money - it's information and the ability to access it by READING. A father can only help up to a certain point.
