In my teenage years, there was this sensational beautiful feeling of having my body growing up. Gaining 10-15 centimeter per year, along with gaining other manly attributes such as a harsher voice and more body hair and muscles was very touchable where people seeing me every couple of months used to notice the change and giving admiration comments about how quick I was growing up.

Growing up in itself is a nice experience. The bigger someone becomes, the more freedom, confidence and power he gets. Of course growing up doesn’t mean only about physical attributes, but that is what was really touchable at that age.

Unfortunately, that phase of time has been short. Only few years of growing, and you end up with a stable physical form that you carry on with your whole life.

Few years passed after my teenage, and I forgot the sweet feeling of growing up. Although with college study, work and people’s interaction, life managed to remind me of growth in a different level, which is mental.

For few years mental growth had been so subtle. Not until two years ago when I start reading books where the sweet growing feeling hit me back. With every book I read I feel myself taller: a growth that can be as measurable in terms of mental scaling as my teenage growth in terms of physical scaling.

The days of measuring up my height to other men in the street, my cousins, and friends are back in a different taste. The measurement tools changed, and instead of standing side by side scaling whose shoulder is higher, I sit down now with people and argue about life which after few minutes shows the real height of everyone’s mental age.

Unfortunately, people who read in the Arab world are really scarce. There is a cultural behavior to make fun of people who read. A lot of others claim, with no reasonable proof that they feel so bored ready and can’t manage to keep a book open in their hands. I know that they are missing a lot, and their unsound reasoning just shows the shortness of their mental age. Sadly, this cultural phenomena is like a virus, that is widely spread among us, and is leaving us like midgets among other people around the world.

The other day I was watching Marcell Khalifeh on Rotana with Wafa’ al Kilani (Against the current show), and I was sitting there impressed with how big this man is. He is one of those who discovered a way to keep up growing regardless what appears of natural laws. Seeing people that big changes my view of life. Now I realize that I am not getting older, in the contrary, by reading, I am getting bigger and bigger everyday. I hope one day to reach the heights of men like Marcell Khalife, Paulo Coelho and others.