The Casualties of Competitive Reading

The more that you read,

The more things you will know.

The more that you'll learn,

The more places you'll go.

Young cat! If you keep

Your eyes open enough,

Oh the stuff you will learn!

The most wonderful stuff!

I Can Read with My Eyes Shut! Dr. Seuss

One may not think of reading and writing as activities that are inherently dangerous to one's health. Compared to a career in construction, or, say, professional ice hockey, it pales. But I will assert nonetheless that there are a number of injuries related to too much reading. My chiropractor has chided me--more than once!--on neck craning. As for writing, much as my father suffers from tennis elbow, I'm confident I have an equally serious case of typing elbow. Ergonomic desks aside, one's elbows can only take so much. Sometimes I try this technique I learned from my friend PJ, voracious writer of research papers, which involves resting one wrist at a time on your desk. But so far as I can see, there's really just no way to stretch your elbows. (You're welcome to try at home and get back to me, but don't say I didn't warn you.)

The worst casualty, however, has to be the eyes. Reading is stressing out my eyes these days. Have you ever had an eye tic that started in your left eyelid, crossed over to your right, crossed back over to your left, and THEN, to be extra cute, decided to keep starting up again every time you sneeze? Try proofing iBooks for a few days. You'll get there. The zooming, oh, the zooming! I had sore eyes for weeks after our last deadline.

Previously in life, I've prided myself on being one of these people with annoyingly perfect vision. There's a certain amount of satisfaction in being able to read street signs that nobody else can. When I was a sharp-eyed little girl, I blithely disregarded reading lamps. As the sun was going down, and the colors of the room shifted softly from golden to blue tones, I would snuggle down deeper into the couch, happily engrossed in my E. Nesbit. Once, my Nana Pete came to visit, and I remember her catching me engaged in such activities. Snapping on a light, she exclaimed, "You'll hurt your eyes! You'll have to get glasses!"

Overly nervous grandmother, or prophet? Only time shall tell. But oh, reader! I have fears. I fear the day of glasses approaches. Combine a childhood of consuming Black Stallion novels under the covers by flashlight, an education in the literary arts, and a career in wading through semicolons and dashes, and it is starting to look like a losing combination.

And now, just because I'm an English major and we can get away with this kind of thing, I'll leave you with Milton. As any good student of literature can pedantically tell you, Milton went blind later in life. He also made his daughters read aloud to him in languages that they did not understand. I would not have wanted to be Milton's daughter, but I do love this sonnet.

When I consider how my light is spent

E're half my days, in this dark world and wide,

And that one Talent which is death to hide,

Lodg'd with me useless, though my Soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, least he returning chide,

Doth God exact day-labour, light deny'd,

I fondly ask; But patience to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need

Either man's work or his own gifts, who best

Bear his milde yoak, they serve him best, his State

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

And post o're Land and Ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and waite.