What if?

Of all the questions ever asked, those that begin with what if, are possibly the most powerful and leave us wondering as we follow a different path in our minds. I don’t think I’m alone when I ask myself questions about different decisions I’ve made throughout my life. The question that haunts me the most is, what if I couldn’t read? Every time I finish writing something or I finish reading something written by another author or just a note from a friend, I often wonder what I might have missed out on if I’d never learned to read. It blows my mind when I think of the thousands of books I’ve read and the discoveries I’ve made because of something that I constantly take for granted. I wonder if I would have travelled as much as I have or whether I would have settled into a humdrum life within a comfortable place and not bothered.

It’s so difficult to imagine another world than the one I’ve created for myself. I wouldn’t be writing this blog or looking at which song is up next on my playlist because I wouldn’t have the ability. This realisation makes me feel sort of ill and my heart goes out to those who don’t share the ability or have the love of literature that I have. I guess they’re probably doing something they love right now, and wondering what if, about their own skills. Perhaps, because they don’t know what they’re missing, they don’t miss it. I suppose I’ll never know.