The Library

I love the ease with which i can read all kinds of material on my computer by this or that search, through stumbling across stuff and from the direction and insight of others. I really find it addictive. But there is another place full of words i enjoy more and it has an effect on me far deeper than addiction. It creates a serenity, an ease of thought and sense of self i probably only ever associate with family and friends. At the library stacks and stacks of knowledge pulse out at you. its as though there is a low hum, a ticklish whisper as you pass by, a lost idea waiting to connect back to the world. I have learnt that we do not find books but they find us. And never should we be as foolhardy to miss this gift because those are the books which will open up your life and your thoughts in ways you hadn't even realised were there. Sometimes it is the title, sometimes a friend's recommendation, sometimes its just sitting there on a table staring back at you asking your eyes to look inside. And when you perch the book at the end of your hand, and let its pages open like the wings of a bird you honestly for the briefest moment use its power and insight to fly away from your concious mind. The words and your self become something else, able to see connections and meanings that alone your eyes could not reach. Maybe one day i'll write a book and it will sit on a library shelf waiting for some young mind to touch its stem, open its pages, consume and combine with its words. i hope the digital age does not take my stacks away because nowhere have i been happier alone than in the library. funny that. but true.