No one truly understands how much it means to me to own a book.
I didn’t bring a single book to Cebu—I left them all at home simply because there was no space. I thought I could live without books, believing they might distract me from reading my academic modules. But it feels like living without eating or drinking—nothing but pure agony.
Believe me when I say that I nearly became illiterate—I could no longer form coherent sentences or read complex English paragraphs, and I was losing perspective on how I saw the world.
Without a book, I feel alienated, powerless, empty. I would get stuck in my own little bed, doom-scrolling, frying my brain cells with unhealthy media consumption. It feels miserable because many people online are anti-intellectual toward humanities—shallow, fad consumers, and conformists to social media’s top opinion.
Needless to say, reading has and will always be my hobby, defining and refining the person I present and think of; always facing a screen just doesn’t sit right with me.
If I ever put my phone down, my thoughts backfire on me, bringing back all the bad moments that happened and had been set aside because I didn’t have time to process them. Night after night, and even during the day, all I could think of was the misfortunes and lack of luck from my past and future. It was draining and miserable. You become overly familiar with the ordinariness of life, and you get sick of it—you feel chained to the repetitiveness and your day lacks magic.
Unlike when I have a book by my side—I live a million lives in one day. I get to anticipate what’s below the next paragraph, meet different people on every page, and explore places I’ve never been to. And whenever I put my book down, I am not fazed by my rushing and unstructured thoughts; rather it helps me reflect and assess these thoughts in a philosophical and structured manner. The story speaks to me, and the characters resonate with my experiences, giving just explanations to my own because they, too, experience them.
What’s great about books is that they tell stories of human beings, not just random profile pictures you see online with “brain-rot” sentences. I am talking about character sketches—in the flesh—that are importantly political. I am reminded every time I read there are people out there who live and need to be fought for, like the marginalized sectors, and that there is a system that needs to be challenged.
Reading cultivates a great sense of empathy, and empathy may occur in the form of resistance. Empathy, when deeply felt, doesn’t just make us aware of suffering—it compels us to act against it. In a world where injustice and oppression are normalized, refusing to be indifferent is in itself a form of resistance. Books don’t just make us feel; they make us think critically, recognize patterns of systemic harm, and challenge the status quo.
That’s why reading is inherently political. If reading hasn’t moved you to be empathetic and to resist, then you are just consuming words. Reading is never just an individual act—it has the potential to reshape the collective consciousness and inspire movements.
That is why I need to have a book so I can read because it transcends my selfhood. Reading has never been just a pastime for me—it is survival, resistance, and the closest thing to freedom I can grasp. Every book I read pulls me out of my thoughts and into the world where humanity demands to be seen.
Without books, I forget. I forget that history repeats itself, that oppression thrives in silence, and that ignorance is never neutral. I forget that beyond my struggles there are others—people whose stories are erased, whose voices are drowned out by noise, and whose existence is deemed inconvenient.
Reading makes me remember that every page I turn is an act of defiance against a world that wants us passive, indifferent, and numb. Books do not exist to entertain alone—they exist to unsettle, provoke, and sharpen our understanding of the world and our place in it.
So, I read. I read because I refuse to be blind. I read because I refuse to accept that things must stay the way they are. And if there is one thing I know for certain, it is this: Words have built empires, toppled dictators, and sparked revolutions.
A book is never just a book—it is a call to action. And I will always answer.
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Uel Immer C. Aberia, 18, is a first-year political science student at the University of San Carlos.