Myself as the Medium

Using the word "primacy" with its meaning of what is most important, Steven Roger Fischer writes:

" Everyone -- young and old, past and present -- has had to admit its primacy. 
For an ancient Egyptian official it was a "boat on water". 
For an aspiring Nigerian pupil four thousand years later
it is "a touch of light in a deep dark well". 
For most of us it will be the voice of civilization itself ... Reading."

So begins Fischer's 350-page book A History of Reading.

There is something a bit amusing about reading a book about reading.  (In the same way that you are now reading an article about my reading a book about reading.)  It is a bit like one of the Möbius strips we made as kids, learning how to give the strip of paper a half-twist before gluing the two ends together.  When cut down its length, instead of falling apart into two bands, the Möbius strip becomes a single giant band. It thus reveals that it was not actually two-sided before it was cut.  If a fly had crawled along the strip before it was cut, it would have traversed both the seeming "outside" and the "inside" -- because it was all a single surface.

Despite the circular irony of my reading A History of Reading -- becoming a part of that still ongoing history as I read -- Fischer's book provides a wealth of detail, along with a picture opening each chapter.  The picture facing chapter 1 is of a sculpture captioned, "Amenhotep-Son-of-Hapu, an eminent Egyptian scribe, reading a partially opened papyrus scroll. The statue dates from the 14th century BC."  The picture facing the final chapter 7 is of an adolescent woman today reading a message on a cellphone.  It is titled, "the future of reading . . .", with the three dots conveying the open-endedness of the still unfinished story of reading.  Facing that picture, Fischer continues that theme by titling that last chapter, "Reading the Future."

Being myself of an older generation than that young woman who grew up with electronic reading, I still prefer "the printed word" -- ink on nice, rectangular sheets of paper bound together.  Nevertheless, the Corona-virus pandemic of 2020 increased my appreciation of the quick connectivity of portable phones with texting capability.  Psychologists counseled us to guard against depression under the stay-at-home orders by staying in touch with family and friends.  Electronic media came to the rescue, and it included onscreen text-messages and emails to be read -- something that ancient Egyptian scribe could have never imagined!

But what do I put in my electronic messages?  Our modern fascination with the ever-changing forms of media can get ahead of transforming the content of what I write.  And ahead of transforming the content of myself.

Do I immediately re-send what presents itself as a "news" article just because it reinforces my personal gripes?  Do I quickly re-send it to those people who I know share my gripes -- thus creating a never-ending Möbius loop?  Or do I try to remember those friends and acquaintances I have not contacted in awhile, and create new loops of caring and comfort?  What is my primacy?

And for self-care, when I am feeling isolated, I might even pull out one of those rectangular books of paper, and quietly turn its pages as I read.  The story of reading continues . . .

~ ~ ~

(What type of reading do you find to be restorative of your best self?)

(Quotations are from Steven Roger Fischer's
A History of Reading, © 2003, pp. 7, 10, 306, & 307.)
(The photo of the statue is by Olaf Tausch and is used under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.)