Aging Capriciously

Eleven years ago, I wrote a blog that I am republishing today.  It was called “Books, Books, Books” and it described my love affair with books and libraries.  As a young child in a relatively low income family, there was no place that was more important to me than the local library.  The library was full of encyclopedias, books and knowledge.  The library door was my portal to everything I could ever dream about. 

I came across my old blog a short while ago and noticed that few people had ever read it.  This saddened me because of the 2000 some odd blogs that I have written, I thought it was one of my best.  I included pictures and links to some very cute songs about books that I admonished my readers to be sure to listen to.  To my surprise, when I checked the links to videos on YouTube, they still worked. 

In 1959, Rod Serling warned us about a civilization that lost everything except its books.  One of his stories described a world where books were no longer valued:  The Twilight Zone — “Time Enough at Last” (Season 1, Episode 8)  Upon watching this video again on Amazon Prime, I was struck by how many of the ideas that Serling described resonated with those in my blog.  To say that Serling was way ahead of his time is an understatement of vast proportions. 

Today we face a stranger danger — a civilization surrounded by books, knowledge, libraries, archives, universities, documentaries, and information beyond anything in human history… yet increasingly we are unable to slow down long enough to read deeply, think quietly, or reflect seriously.

The tragedy may no longer be that the glasses are broken.  (You will soon find out what this means.)

The tragedy may be that many people no longer wish to read the books at all.  Alexa, AI, Google and short videos have made books obsolete for many people. 

I want to use Metis, my AI assistant to provide a brief summary of the Serling episode before I introduce you to my book blog. 

The Twilight Zone — “Time Enough at Last” (Season 1, Episode 8)  — Summary by Metis

The episode originally aired on November 20, 1959, and starred Burgess Meredith as Henry Bemis, one of the most memorable tragic characters ever created by Rod Serling.

Henry Bemis is a timid, nearsighted bank teller whose greatest love in life is reading books.  Unfortunately, he lives in a world that has no patience for intellectual curiosity, solitude, or contemplation.  His boss berates him for reading during lunch breaks.  Customers complain when he becomes distracted by literature.  Even at home, his domineering wife cruelly mocks his love of books and sabotages his attempts to read by scribbling through the pages of one of his treasured volumes.

Bemis is portrayed as gentle, withdrawn, and almost childlike in his devotion to literature.  Books are not merely entertainment to him; they are refuge, meaning, and freedom.  Yet everywhere he turns, society treats reading as useless, impractical, or antisocial.  Serling’s underlying critique becomes clear early in the episode: modern civilization often rewards noise, conformity, and efficiency while marginalizing thoughtful inner life.

One afternoon, while Henry is in the bank vault reading during his lunch break, an enormous explosion suddenly shakes the building.  After the rumbling subsides, he cautiously emerges from the vault to discover that the outside world has been annihilated in what appears to be a nuclear war.  The city lies in ruins.  Civilization is gone.  Henry wanders through the desolation in shock, realizing he may be the last man alive.

At first, despair overwhelms him.  He contemplates suicide because life without human companionship seems unbearable.  But then, while exploring the wreckage, he discovers the remains of a public library.  Before him stand thousands upon thousands of untouched books scattered among the ruins.

For the first time in his life, Henry feels genuine happiness.  At last, there is “time enough” to read everything he ever wanted.  He sorts the books into categories and eagerly plans years of study and enjoyment: philosophy, poetry, history, adventure, science.  The library becomes a cathedral of human civilization surviving after humanity itself has vanished.

Then comes one of the most famous endings in television history.

As Henry bends down to gather his books, his thick eyeglasses fall from his face onto the stone steps below and shatter.  Without them, he is nearly blind and unable to read.  Surrounded by infinite knowledge, he can no longer access any of it.

The episode ends with Henry sobbing in despair amid the ruins.

Why the episode remains powerful

The story works on several levels simultaneously:

• A warning about nuclear annihilation. 
• A meditation on loneliness and isolation. 
• A defense of books and intellectual life. 
• A critique of societies that undervalue reflection and learning. 
• A cruel irony about fate and human longing. 

Serling suggests that civilization may survive physically through books, but knowledge only matters if human beings retain both the ability and the desire to engage with it.  The tragedy is not merely broken glasses.  It is humanity’s repeated tendency to neglect wisdom until it is almost gone. 

In many ways, “Time Enough at Last” remains one of the greatest love letters ever written to books.  The blog that follows is my “love letter” describing my passion for books and ideas.  It is not the physical book that is so powerful.  It is the messages, memories, concepts, history, narratives that lie on the pages between the book covers.  It is true that knowledge has long been disseminated in a variety of ways, from ballads, storytelling, documentaries, TV, Radio, Internet, myths, traditions, songs, papyrus, stones and even pantomime.  Ideas transcend the vehicles that we can use to convey them.  Marshall Mc Luhan said that the “Medium is the Message.”  McLuhan was correct that mediums shape consciousness.  Television reshaped politics.  Smartphones reshaped attention spans.  Social media reshaped discourse. 

However, it is just as true that “Great messages survive the death of mediums.”  Great literature, philosophy, moral teachings, and human stories migrate across centuries and technologies because they touch something permanent in human nature.

• Homer survived oral storytelling. 
• The Bible survived scrolls, parchment, codices, print, radio, film, and digital media. 
• Shakespeare survived stage performance, print, cinema, and streaming. 
• Victor Hugo survives regardless of whether Les Misérables is read on paper, Kindle, audiobook, or quoted online. 
• Ideas from Socrates survived despite the fact that Socrates himself never wrote a word. 

The medium changes.
The message persists.

In fact, one could argue that the greatest messages are precisely those capable of transcending mediums.

Thus, my blog (written perhaps by an old man who has outlived his time. Saddled with the now antique values that he was brought up on) is not just about books.  It is about the value of Ideas.  The value of Knowledge.  The value of Learning. 

Without these values, civilization is dead. 

Books, Books, Books —- 11-12-2014

Fat books, short books, tall books, skinny books, long books, digital books, small books, large books, I like books.  Fantasy books, romance books, sci-fi books, mystery books, drama books, classical books, comic books, history books, text books, science books, I like books.  Books are my best friends.  Books are my comfort on a rainy day.  Books are my faithful companions in my journey through life.  Books keep me company when I am feeling down.

Between the Lions: Song – “Read a Book Today”  (Please Listen)

Books talk to me, teach me, persuade me, lecture me, admonish me, remind me, educate me, humble me, exhort me, persuade me, inspire me, uplift me and entreat me.  Books are my solace, my cheer, my consolation, my relief, my respite, my succor and my happiness.  I would give everything I have ever earned, everything I have ever accomplished, and everything I have ever become for one good book.  Nothing is as dear to me as the ideas, memories and visions that I have obtained from the books in my life.

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”  ― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Never was so great a day for me as when I learned about a library.  A library is a place where all the books in the world are there for people like us to read.  It is a place where race, class, wealth, education, and background do not make one difference.  A free library card is the entry point to all of the knowledge in the world.  Kings, Emperors, Dictators, Presidents, Rulers, Shahs, Ayatollahs, Prime Ministers and common laborers from Wal-Mart are all equal in the library.

Read A Book – Lynbrook Elementary School.  (Please Listen)

Speed readers are no more privileged than slower readers.  Some of us are there for education, some for entertainment, some for enlightenment, some for motivation and some just to relax.  We leave a library larger, strong and more important than when we entered.  Some of us may have degrees, some of us may have titles, some of us may have diplomas and certificates, but the wise person knows that the only real value is in a book.

“Do not read, as children do, to amuse yourself, or like the ambitious, for the purpose of instruction. No, read in order to live.” ― Gustave Flaubert

My Title:

Gone With the Wind, Moby Dick, To Hell and Back, The Wizard of Oz, A Tale of Two Cities, War and Peace, Les Misérables, The Prince and the Pauper, The Art of War, The Prince.

My title may be the most important part of me.  It must catch your attention and also convey some idea as to what I am about.  This is not an easy task.  To create curiosity, to excite the imagination, to lure a potential reader to a tale or ideas that will take them to another world or another time!  To offer a promise of greater things to come if only you will open the pages that lie before you. There is more gold between the covers of most books then you will ever find in the ground.  Treasures abound if you will only pick me.  Pick Me!  Pick Me!

My Preface:

Here is where I can tell you a little about my history and also give credit to those other books and people that had an impact on my birth and creation.  Sometimes I get carried away here and bore my readers.  I must try to be interesting and succinct.

My Table of Contents:

Frequently, I like to list the information or chapters that I have inside so you can see what I am all about. This is really helpful when I get posted on Amazon or other book sites and you can get an overview of me to help you decide whether you want to buy me and take me home or download me.

My Introduction:

“So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and custom, a social condemnation which, in the midst of civilization, artificially creates a hell on earth, and complicates with human fatality a destiny that is divine; so long as the three problems of the century – the degradation of man by the exploitation of his labor, the ruin of women by starvation and the atrophy of childhood by physical and spiritual night are not solved; so long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words and from a still broader point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, there should be a need for books such as this.”  ― Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

“Call me Ishmael.”   ― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

“My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people do not know.”   ― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle

I can be long or short, but my introduction just may be my most important part.  I need to grab you at the start.  I need to pull you in and make you want to find out more.  I need to peak your curiosity and give you a reason to turn my pages.  I cannot be boring.  That is the only sin I can have, to bore you from the start.  Love me, hate me, but don’t neglect me.  Find out more about me please.  Continue reading. There is so much more I can tell you if you will only keep turning my pages. I promise I will thrill you, excite you, educate you, scare you, interest you but I will never, never, never bore you.

 I Love Reading – Book Song  (Please Listen)

My Chapters:

Here is my meat and muscle.  No room for fat.  I am trimmed and buff.  I have six pack abs all over me.  I keep my chapters uniform and not too long.  That way you will feel like you are making progress.  Every one of my chapters is a cliff hanger.  You will leave one wanting to get to the next one.  You will forget to eat and drink.  You will be late for work and supper.  You will put off your chores.  Time will fly by without your noticing.

You will be so absorbed you will lose weight and not get to bed when you should.  I will entice you with thoughts and ideas that will keep you riveted to my pages.  As you get to the end of me, you will start to feel sad.  It will be like leaving a loved one.  You will want more of me than I can give.  I am sorry.  I loved you too.  But you can read me again another day.

I Love to Read  (Please Listen)

My Ending:

All good things must end.  How shall I end? Shall I end with profundity, climax or conclusions?  Should I be cliff hanger and make you wait until my next volume to get satisfaction as in the “Harry Potter” stories or should I give you finality now as in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest?”  Will my ending be bizarre as in Hitchcock or will I lay all the pieces out as in J. A. Vance.  What if I am a serious book, will my hypothesis hold water or will you dismiss me as trivial?  Will I be a one night stand or will you come back for more?

“Ends are not bad things, they just mean that something else is about to begin. And there are many things that don’t really end, anyway, they just begin again in a new way.”  ― C. Joy Bell C.

Time for Questions:

Do you read daily?  Why not?  Do you like to read but cannot find the time?  Do you read to your children or grandchildren?  Do you spend more time watching TV or reading?  What value do you place on knowledge and learning?  How do you reach your goals in these areas?  What if no books were available?   Do you think some books should be banned?  Why or Why not?  Who is your favorite author?  Why?

Life is just beginning.

It you did not listen to the short videos inserted in this blog, you are missing the best part.  Please do yourself a favor and go back and listen to these songs.