A world of books. A rare little independent Japanese book seller in Nakatsu, Osaka.

I’ve always identified myself as being a literary person. I studied English literature in university and even majored in creative writing. I love books, the actual physical touch of them, the weight of them in my hands, the smell of paper. As a youth, books were my escape from an awkward adolescence. My first experiences of love, obsession, heartache were from the novels I read, even the experience of reading them was very real to me, from forming attachments to the characters to feeling sadness when our time together would inevitably end in the last pages of a story. I still enjoy getting engrossed in a good novel, but I don’t seek them out as much as I used to.

My last bookish phase came with the beginning of my yoga practice. I collected as many books on yoga, I wanted to understand it, to use the same love for words to experience this new way of living. I don’t think I read through a third of these books that take a whole shelf on my bookcase in Manila. The ultimate teacher is always life itself, every book, lecture, teacher is a supplement to the greater lesson-maker which is life.

No one and nothing can show you the experience of anything. One might help facilitate or guide or share. Ultimately the job of experiencing anything is our own. We must, simply, experience it. To learn yoga, we must must practice. To live life, we must live.

Sometimes, I miss my books. I miss the old me totally absorbed in the pages of another world. But I also know that my lack of enthusiasm for a world of paper, stories and information is due to a greater engagement with the world that I live in–that these days, I favor activities that dissolve the stories and words that have previously defined me and my life. And perhaps, in the future, I will enjoy reading again with the same voracity as before, but for now, I am content in enjoying the moment before me, the unfolding story of life in real time.