Reading is how you create a bulletproof mind. If you learn how to read, you learn to interpret reality as it is - as much as you can - which is more than most people, who are too busy distracting themselves with illusions and distraction. Without reading, not only will you shy away from books out of fear of the silence, and the potential boredom that comes in the beginning, you will think and therefore live like everybody else, because you will be letting everyone else around you guide your thinking... who also don't read.