my kindle is my salvation

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, a 19 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

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btw, feel free to reply with topic ideas you want me to write about for future posts.

onto today’s topic: my kindle is my salvation 📖 

remember my biggest packing regret from my tanzania trip? well, i fixed it this time and brought a kindle with me.

2 days before my flight to korea, i was browsing on amazon thinking of maybe buying a kindle so that i could keep myself entertained by reading. i then vaguely remembered my dad getting one for himself years ago, and i didn’t remember him using it often, if at all.

i claimed his kindle as my own, charged it up, and downloaded 5 different books, knowing my lack of attention span when it comes to reading. 😁 

i grew up being that kid that would champion reading as my favourite hobby in the world. my mom would take my sister and i to the library every week with our designated book bags in tow to get a new set of books for the week, and the cycle would continue indefinitely. it used to be so easy for me to get sucked into a book and read for hours on end in my own little world. 🌏️ i could finish 500+ page books in one sitting, zip through a couple novels in a week and let my imagination run absolutely wild. 

at some point along the way, i stopped making trips to the library and my ability to turn page after page with unwavering interest dwindled. when someone would ask me what my hobbies were in middle school, i’d instinctually start to say “reading” but then realize i hardly do it at all (except for re-reading the percy jackson series, but that doesn’t count).

my attention-span was shot by my shifting interest to reading manga and watching anime. i needed more visual stimulation that just words on a paper. carrying a book around to read was too much effort, and going to the library for a new book was also too much effort. 😴 with manga and anime, i did it all online — probably further worsening my attention span. not even joking, i think all throughout high school i probably finished reading < 10 proper novels.

in the last 2 weeks, i’ve finished 5.

in my prime 5th grade days, i covered 10 books in a week, but i also had nothing else to do in my life so i’m proud of my current 2.5 books / week rate. 😭

honestly, i give full credit to my kindle. the effort to read has been cut out entirely: i can read any book in existence right on a thin tablet that’s extremely easy to carry around, my progress is always saved with options to highlight/save/annotate text, i rarely need to charge it, and it doesn’t strain my eyes in the slightest.

it’s not even that i’m just dedicating my whole day to reading — any idle time is the perfect chance for me to easily pull it out of my bag and start tapping to the next page. on a bus ride, waiting for a taxi, while sipping a drink at a cafe … anything! ☕️ 

my kindle has rekindled (haha, get it) my love for reading once again and i feel so much more imaginatively inspired as a result.

give me book recs !! i enjoy reading a lot of sci-fi and realistic fiction with underlying themes of social unrest.

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