Today, most people are literate. They can and do read, whether the texts they read are glanced at on a phone or are from grand literature in bound volumes from hallowed libraries. And reading is also predominantly taken for granted, especially in those regions and places of the earth where access to reading has the status of a privilege acquired but long forgotten, like a dusty medal in our desk drawer.
The lack of awareness is not the loss of awareness: reading has even more become automatic than it was, thanks largely to modern media and its applications. The distinction between the different matters to be read and the locations from which they are read is an entirely false one (although I would not enjoy having to read Ulysses in a crowded train on my phone).
A child at the beginning of learning to read is proud to recite the alphabet to others: it is the first flash of confident self-expression through reading. Then the child embarks on the glorious journey of seeking access to and entering wider and richer worlds of imagination, as well as those nearer horizons that permit us to learn, work, love, sing and praise. As adults the privilege of reading may lose its golden gleam of awareness in the steely shutters of the workplace but its acceptance in its new forms as the tool of the intellect and the hidden safe of the creative spirit is largely unrecognised even by its primary beneficiaries.
How vast and glorious are these new horizons, skies and worlds! This endless and yet lengthening universe of reading looks different to everyone. There are many paths through the luxuriance of imagination. No end is in sight because none are needed when each step leads to new outcrops, new views, new insights and new experiences.
And all from an open book.