Scrolling, scrolling, scrolling…
Sun.8.Feb.26.
A happy Sunday evening to you! What do you plan to do this week? Work. Play. Scrolling scrolling scrolling ‘pon de phone in every kinda weather, we are all vaqueros…cowboys…on the Internet?
Okay, hear me out…if you find yourself scrolling endlessly, would you trust me if I interrupted you and said, Cease the scrolling and lose yourself in a book instead? Even if it’s a book with a simple tale. The very act of reading a book refreshes the brain. I don’t know how, why, I only know from personal experience, and from what others have told me.
I’m writing this today based on a conversation I had last Wednesday afternoon with a wonderful friend from high school, and two brilliant Brazilians, about children riding out life on the Internet. I’m sharing these thoughts because I care. What are the permanent-scrolling-parents teaching their children? I wish I could show you the future, damn, whole chunks of non-reading, brain-drained nations.
Don’t get me started on brain-drain, friend. I’ve seen its effect on my lovely native land, where most of the bright, the educated, migrated by the masses, leaving a minority with imagination, initiative, and too many unskilled people. It’s taken much courage, strength, will, for those with skills to help the country begin developing. And look now, most of the population is scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, back to brain drain? Or brain rot, as my high school friend reminded us last Wednesday.
What solutions can you think of that could stop brains from rotting due to all this scrolling, my high school friend asked.
Books! Read books! Start a reading revolution, rally book lovers to share their love for stories, for reading; teach the children in your community to enjoy reading…do something man, anything to help the pickney them, your children, anybody’s children.
I’ve started in one small way to reach out to grownups, and I’d like to share with you (if you haven’t seen it as yet) this place: Book Lovin’ Days. Here, I indulge in remembering books I’ve read, thinking about books I want to read, and about people. Because books are full of people. Every kind of person you’ve despised, loved, wanted to be with, feared, avoided. You name them, you will find them in a book from centuries ago to now.
This is what I’ve written recently:
“…there were folk tales from faraway countries. Funny how I’ve never forgotten those tales. Actually, not funny. I remember them because they told lessons about greed, envy, laziness, crookedness, hard work and kindness.”
“If there were an International Cussing Contest, Lucille would’ve taken home several lead medals coated with fake gold.
“When Lucille cusses her neighbours, the air turns purple, and it ain’t a pretty purple like jamoon or grapes or cute-girls’ party purple. Lucille’s cusses spray a deep dark mist around the neighbourhood as though Armageddon day is coming.”
Haha. Now here’s the problem. How do you stop non-book lovers from scrolling long enough to read a book? If you know, send me a note, I will gladly share it with the world.
It’s getting late, and I am tired. I’d better hop off this soapbox and prepare for bed.
See you the next two Sundays from now. Remember to take care of you! Read a book, eat good food and dance! Plenty luuuve, neena.
P.S. A non-book thing. I bought flowers yesterday for my mother and me with a birthday gift card my auntie gave me in December.
When they stopped teaching cursive in schools, the education system quietly traded depth and patience for speed and skimming—and now, instead of nurturing sustained reading and critical thinking through books, we’re watching kids learn to scroll endlessly through feeds that rarely ask them to slow down or reflect.
You know, someone told me they’d read that the guy who invented “infinite scrolling” said that he wishes he never had. What he unwittingly unleashed is responsible for so much.
Anyway, I’m reading a book called The Measure. What about you?