No pot of gold at the end of the reading rainbow

This is such a random thought, but today while I was trolling through downtown's usedbook stores, I was overwhelmed by the amount of books that are in existence.

Like, there must be billions of books on this planet! More than the amount of the world's population! In the one bookstore I was in, there were stacks and stacks and shelves and shelves of books that seemingly haven't even been handled in years. And then I found out the guy had even more books in his basement! It's a wonder how there are as many books as there are ants on this planet, yet the world illiteracy rate is surprisingly high (I'm not even going to bother bullshitting a statistic for you, look it up yourself).

It's also sad to find out that less and less people, those who are forutnate enough to be literate, are reading. The owner of the bookstore said along with 7 other bookstores, he was closing that year because there was no business in used bookstores (thanks to Chapters?). More people are picking up iPods than books and sadly I am one of those people (well I don't have an iPod but I do have a lot of magazines with bright, glossy pictures!).

I used to read like a friggin' bookworm. When I was younger, I pretty much read the entire series of The Babysitters' Club and I had a substantial Nancy Drew collection. I was once desperate for something to read. Would you believe I used to be a library hound? Now, I don't even know where my library card is.

Sure I could use the excuse that school has taken away time for me to read for pleasure but that is such a lie seeing that I don't even read for school! While I could read a book or two in my spare time, I guiltlessly peruse the internet for celebrity paparazzi photos and scour fashion websites. I am, I guess you could say, a pop culture whore. As much as I hate it, it's become a rut I've fallen into where reading is only an option if there's a gun put to your head.

When did reading become such a stigma? "Reading? Pah! There's the internet!"<-well, there's answer #1. Or perhaps we generally eat too much bad food like sugar and caffeine, that it's got us all riled up and restless that we don't have the patience to sit and read. There's probably other answers, those of which I am way too lazy to think about or look into, but we've begun to ditch reading for more useless past times like going to movies (I think the last movie I saw in theatres was "40-year Old Virgin" and I swear I came out of that 20% dumber), playing Poker endlessly and just doing nothing for the sake of nothing "better" to do. Not to mention how much it costs to do "nothing".

Don't get me wrong, I'm not dogging on people and saying they shouldn't do the above mentioned, but there should be some balance as to how we spend our time, right? I've definitely cut back my internet time but I know there are still many people who are mindlessly sitting in front of their computers, clicking clicking typing typing.

I dunno, maybe it's just me, but I feel so restless not doing something at least mentally stimulating. There's only so much drunkage, betting and mind-numbing movies I can take. Haha! Or maybe it's just that everyone else studies so damn hard at school that they need to vex out with "mind-numbing" fun on the weekends and this problem is only my own because I am already too vexed! Ahhh....

Literati, anyone?