Book-reading is down and out and internet surfing is up and in, thanks to the invention of the electronic chip, the computer and the internet. Sadly books as the prime tool of mental training shuffles to the exit like a slapped clown. As a result the passionate convulotions of poetry and art are being pushed back out of the arena to make way for the sciences that resulted in this new technology age. The ancient education aim of making a person's mind, through book-reading only, a self-contained and instantly literate person of dignity and grace has gone by the board, as the classics and humanities are not given a fair chance as people rush to their computers. A fistful of digital expertise is now worth a headful of imaginative brilliance. The poets and artistic minds are gradually perishing on a collection of computers tended by a world full of the technology savvy intellectual vestals, virgin of any of the authentic raptures that first planted warmth in the entrails of the human race. The classical, book centred, literary education was a kind of course in compassion that served to sweeten the human race and without it me thinks the thoughts of man about men will become more boorish and sinisterly loveless.

                                                                                                   
                                                                       
I am a computer geek by profession and in fact my children and my friends always tease me that my husband is my laptop because I spend so many passionate moments on the net, blogging, designing customers' websites and networking. Fortunately the computer world has failed to completely takeover my life because I grew up as a bookworm and book-reading is so ingrained in me that computers have failed to completely erase it from my life. I give books part of the credit for the woman of substance I turned out to be, the knowledge I got from reading books moulded me.  So my mourning the slow death of book-reading is based on a real life experience philosophic revulsion. I have, at odd moments, tried not to mourn , have fought with passion to see the growing pantomine of computer and internet techs as something other than noisome irrelevances that don't contribute much to the richness of character of human beings. I report little progress. Bill Gates I can forgive, because I want to believe that through corporate social responsibility part of the amount of money he makes out of computers contribute a lot to the improvement of the lives of some Americans but my heart hits the floor at the sight and thought of the crew of hackers, computer virus makers and spam generators he indirectly helped to beget.

                                                  

I was mourning the slow death of book reading when I went to sleep last night and had a dream. It began off-key and hazy. I was standing at a peaceful river bank, it was quiet and cool in contrast with the lunatic din and hit  that represents most of my awake moments in this world. Then came  a group of my friends who in yesteryears belonged to the same book club as myself and we started to build a library right there at the quiet riverbank until it was a beautiful building full of classics and humanities books and we were librarians in it.  I was interviewing each of the people who wanted to become a member of the library and this is how the interview was going.
Me  Madam, there is no computer in this library and you are so used to computers, are you sure you can cope with a computer-free environment.
Girl  Of course , it is the main reason I want to be a member of this particular library, computers distract me from reading books and keep my mind in cyberspace and away from the real world.
Me Good you have passed the interview
Me Sir, you are a scientist and this library has no science books, are you sure this is the library you want to join.
Man I am not lost, I want to be a member of this library, it will help me get in touch with humanity. Am sick and tired of boiling, splitting or dissecting things if not adding or subtracting them.
Me Then you are in the right place sir because here we believe in a kind of integrity whereby if things don't naturally want to expose their middles we would want you to leave them alone. What if some supernaturally wise and eternal thing came along with an urge to split the human, or dissect it? We also believe that two and two can do anything they like, we don't care if they don't make four or zero as long as they don't result in the invention of an electronic chip to computerise the human brain.

                                                                    
                                                           

That  was a funny dream I had and I woke up and laughed at the humour of it all but as book-reading experiences a slow death I won't be laughing when the ultimate result is a generation of people with robot-like cyber minds that is used to being aided by computers in everything they do such that their brains become functionless from lack of use. A generation of people who are unable to relate to each other without technology. Even love making can now be aided by dildos which have an electronic chip inside so can you imagine the coldness and inhuman attitude of such a generation. Real mental thoughts and emotional expressions are being replaced by computer-aided brains and emoticons.
Dear God, save the human race from being gobbled up  by the computer race so that they become people without any traces of humanity in their deeds.