In college English courses from English Composition 2 on up, the study of literature is central. Why? Why study the form of the novel or how a poem uses metaphor? Some might ask how we can justify this in a world so near destruction. Shouldn't we be studying something useful, so as to alleviate pain in the world? Others, perhaps more hedonistic, might approach from a different angle and wonder why bother with reading when we have video. Reading a novel is harder than watching a film. You have to decode the language correctly and get the inflections right. And you have to imagine the people and places and the emotions and voice levels and so on. In a film, this is done for you by trained actors and directors. You are still involved because you are observing details and evaluating characters as you go along in the film. But you are not involved in what the actors have already done for you. In a sense, the actors creativity has blocked your creativity. A reader has to be an actor.