Reading and the Human Being: Temporal Immortality

Abstract

This article approaches reading as a deeply human act that goes beyond the immediate reception of texts toward a wider horizon of temporal and intellectual extension. The author presents reading as a means of moving beyond the limits of the present moment and entering accumulated human and cultural experiences that carry the reader across times, places, and subjectivities. The article discusses the idea of the “global reader,” who does not merely consume a text but recreates it through personal experience, cultural background, and interpretive context, turning reading into a dialogic act between the self, the text, and the world. It also highlights the role of cultural plurality in shaping the reader’s consciousness and draws on literary and intellectual examples to show how reading builds a shared human memory. The article concludes that reading grants the human being a form of temporal immortality by connecting individual life to the experiences of others and expanding knowledge beyond the boundaries of personal time.