I’ve somehow wandered into March, directly from December. How in Hell do I find myself in the third month of the year? I am relatively certain that, yesterday, the idea of the year 2022 was a distant absurdity. And now, here I am, two months in and counting. Time is rushing by faster than I can think. I must put on the brakes or it will get away from me. Time will travel into an unknowable future and take me with it. What awaits us in the next moment, or the one after that? The only way to reduce the speed of time is to savor every moment before it’s gone. To live in the here and now. To accept that tomorrow eventually will come, but until it is here it doesn’t matter. These simple solutions to the disappearance of time take mental discipline, emotional energy, and relentless practice. That is, they are not simple. But they are investments in happiness. The dividends they pay are elements that, together, define what it means to be content.
I know these things. Yet I fritter away moments with worry about moments that have yet to take place. We all engage in this wasteful habit, to one degree or another. Yet simply by acknowledging participation in our own discomfort, we take the first step toward frugality. That is, using our limited moments to generate the most beneficial experiences. Including, of course, moments of contemplation, reflection, and appreciation.
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Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.
~ Marie Curie ~
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I look through my books, the ones that remained after my late wife and I donated or sold so very many before our move from Dallas to Hot Springs Village. Even at pennies on the dollar (or even far less), we made several hundred dollars by selling books to Half-Price Books. I did not keep track, but memory suggests to me that we reduced our library to one-eighth its original size. Even so, the books on the shelves in my study must number over 100; maybe more. Regardless, I need to get rid of even more: the ones I’ve read and enjoyed, but not enough to read again; the ones I want to read, but almost certainly will not (like War and Peace and books of equal size). There are so many books I want to have read, but do not have the patience to wade through. At any rate, those books will have to go. And travel books. And so many more.
I love books. I am a bibliophile. Books allow me to escape reality for a while, insulating me from the unpleasant challenges of the world around me. And they are not only instruments of escape. They bring me ideas and visions and spur intentions in me that I otherwise would never have had. But I am a realist, as well. Books take up space.
Books are transforming from a visible, physical form—the expression of ideas captured in ink and paper—to impossibly small computer files. That reality leads to a question: is the new, electronic form that is replacing the old, physical form really a book? Or will a book always be a physical thing, ideas expressed on paper between two covers? The secondary definition of “book” online reads as follows: “a work of fiction or nonfiction in an electronic format.” So, that answers the question. Or does it? Have we simply ignored the underlying question? What, exactly, is a book? “A work of fiction or nonfiction?” Does that really define the objects we have learned to call “books?” Or do we need to rethink what constitutes a book? And do we need to a new term that describes the capture and distribution of ideas in electronic format?
I suppose my ultimate question, not entirely relevant at this moment in history, is this: will “books” (that is, the physical things with covers) as we know them today eventually wind up only in museums? Will libraries, which house thousands of volumes of old-style books, become unnecessary? I love libraries, too. I love their silence and the reverence they pay to traditional books. And the concepts that books represent, including the freedom to think and say whatever one wishes. But libraries, like books, require physical resources that may be better used in other applications. I hate the idea. But I think I hate it because my romantic notion about books is based on a reverence for the physical “thing” I call a book.
If you compare the adoration of books with religion, you might see the quandary. Religions sometimes get caught up in their icons and idols; religious people sometimes require reminders not to worship idols but, instead, the “god” that inspires those idols. Books might be considered the idols of ideas; when we worship books, we mistakenly may be paying homage to clothing, rather than the body beneath it. I am just thinking. My thoughts may be in the fragile edge of an unstable cliff. So be it.
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The results of my ultrasound yesterday were, in a word, “unremarkable.” That’s what I like to hear or see. “Nothing to see here, folks, move along.” My girlfriend’s more involved procedure is today. I hope she gets the same results. Waiting for test results, even routine tests, can be illuminating. One considers (or may consider…as I do) the possibility that the results could deliver unsettling news. And when one considers that, one begins to imagine how life might change. And that possibility fuels an even greater appreciation and gratitude for the kind of life one is living at this very moment. Life is splendid, even with all its challenges and disappointments. Even with its sometimes nearly unbearable physical or emotional pain. Regardless of the sometimes seemingly endless, aching depression. Life is splendid. We can only hope for that to extend as close to forever as we get.
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He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~
