Dr. Leahcim Semaj
Psychologist | Author | Quantum Transformation Facilitator
The Semaj MindSpa — Where Mind, Spirit, and Science Meet
The greatest gift my mother ever gave me cost nothing.
Every Saturday when I was in junior school and Central Branch Primary, she took me to the Junior Library, dropped me off in the morning, and collected me in the evening. She did not buy me an expensive tutor. She did not enroll me in a special programme. She simply gave me time, space, and access to books — and trusted that something good would come of it. PS. When your ‘home’ is one room there is no space for a ‘library’.
She was right.
I was the kind of child who wrote down words I did not understand. Whenever I heard something at school that confused or intrigued me, I kept a mental note. Then on Saturday, I looked it up. One of the first words that sent me to the library with real urgency was rape. Every child in my school was talking about it — it was in the newspapers constantly — yet nobody could explain it precisely. I went to the library, researched it properly, and came away with an understanding that none of my peers had.
That afternoon, something clicked.
Reading was not just about schoolwork. Reading was a way of making sense of the world when the world refused to explain itself.
In fourth form at Kingston College, someone sat me down and taught me how the chess pieces moved. That same afternoon, I went to the library and borrowed two books on chess strategy. The next day, I beat my teacher. By the end of the week, I was on the school team.
The advantage was not intelligence — it was information. At that point, I was simply the only person in the group who had ever read a chess book. That is what reading does. It compresses years of trial and error into hours of focused learning. Knowledge, once encountered in a book, compounds quietly in the background of everything you do.
I visited my mother in New York as my reward for doing well in my O’Level Exams. She was working as a housekeeper for Dr. Annie Applebaum, a psychiatrist whose home and office occupied a building on Central Park West. My mother had nowhere to leave me during working hours, so Dr. Applebaum made a simple offer:
“You can spend the day in my library.”
For three weeks, I immersed myself in books on psychology and psychiatry. I read for hours every day, overlooking Central Park, absorbing ideas I had never encountered before. Those three weeks did not merely entertain me. They pointed me in a direction. I believe they are part of why I eventually chose to major in psychology and have spent my career trying to understand the human mind. One room. One collection of books. A lifetime quietly redirected. Today my house is full of books.
Jamaica’s Reading Problem Is a Thinking Problem
Jamaica faces serious challenges — rising crime, weak productivity, declining educational outcomes, a political culture increasingly built on noise rather than substance, and a social media ecosystem that rewards reaction over reflection. These problems have many causes. But running beneath most of them is a quieter crisis that rarely makes the headlines:
Too many Jamaicans have stopped reading. And too few ever developed the habit of reading deeply.
This is not a moral failing. It is a structural one. Reading develops vocabulary, concentration, empathy, analytical reasoning, and imagination. A society that does not read gradually loses its capacity to think carefully, to evaluate evidence, to resist manipulation. We do not just lose well-read individuals — we lose the collective intelligence that a nation depends on to solve difficult problems.
The Conditions Must Be Created
A recent New York Times essay made a point worth repeating in Jamaica: the problem is not that people do not want to read. The problem is that society has stopped creating the conditions that make reading possible. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/31/opinion/books-reading-crisis-libraries.html
When major American libraries abolished overdue fines, hundreds of thousands of people returned. When collections expanded and waiting times shortened, borrowing surged. When public reading events were organised, thousands showed up. When books were placed in transit hubs, laundromats, barbershops, and clinics, people read them. The conclusion is straightforward. People read when reading is accessible, visible, and treated as something society values — not merely something individuals are told they should do.
Jamaica must learn the same lesson.
What Jamaica Must Do
Modernise our libraries. Many Jamaican parish libraries are underfunded, understocked, and underused. They should be transformed into genuine community hubs — comfortable, digitally equipped, and programmed with reading clubs, children’s activities, and spaces where people actually want to spend time.
Launch a national reading movement. A campaign like Jamaica Reads — backed by government, schools, churches, media houses, and businesses — could shift the cultural conversation. Reading must become aspirational, not remedial. The Semaj MindSpa would happily promote this.
Make books visible everywhere. Doctor’s offices. Barbershops. Hair salons. Taxi parks. Police stations. Community centres. Books placed in the spaces where people already gather send a quiet but powerful message: reading belongs to ordinary life.
Let adults lead by example. Children do not read because they are told to. They read because they see adults doing it. Parents, teachers, pastors, coaches, and community leaders must become visible readers — not just advocates for reading in speeches, but people seen with books in their hands.
Establish a National Reading Hour. One hour each week, intentionally set aside for families, schools, workplaces, and communities to stop and read together. The act of collective stillness is itself a statement about what we value.
Invest in Jamaican writers. Reading becomes deeply meaningful when people encounter themselves in stories. Supporting local authors and publishers is not a cultural luxury — it is an act of national self-respect.
Embrace technology without surrendering depth. Audiobooks, e-books, and digital libraries are not the enemy of reading. They are a doorway to it, particularly for younger Jamaicans. The goal is a habit of engaging seriously with ideas — the format is secondary.
The Page That Changed Everything
When I trace the arc of my own life, I keep arriving at the same places: a Saturday morning at the Junior Library. A chess book borrowed on impulse. Quiet evenings of study that helped me sit examinations with confidence. Three weeks in a library overlooking Central Park that pointed me toward my life’s work.
Reading did not make me exceptional. It gave me clarity. It gave me tools. It gave me access to the thinking of people far wiser than I was, and it allowed me to stand on their shoulders.
Jamaica’s future will not be determined by our roads or our resorts or our natural resources alone. It will be determined by the quality of our thinking — and the quality of our thinking depends, more than we acknowledge, on the quality of our reading.
We cannot simply tell people to read more and expect change.
We must build a Jamaica where reading is easy, where libraries are welcoming, where books are everywhere, and where the act of sitting down with a good book is seen for exactly what it is: one of the most productive things a person — or a nation — can do.
Every great nation is, first, a nation of readers.
Every transformed life begins with a single page.
The Best Is Yet To Come.
Dr. Leahcim Semaj Psychologist, Author, Social Philosopher
