“Books are carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. They are engines of change, windows on the world, lighthouses erected in the sea of time.” Henry David Thoreau
I am curious to see how the word “book” evolves in our everyday lexicon. Is a book the paper and binding or is it the organization of thoughts inside the covers? Old words like desktop, file and page have survived through alterations in definition. A desktop was once a surface on a piece of furniture that we worked at. It is now carefully crafted 1s and 0s.
So will the word “book” be with us for many more generations, even after they are no longer made with paper and binding or found in libraries or book stores? Will book refer to the collection of organized thoughts, the story, the thesis and/or the creativity?
People are musing about a new style of future-shock where we digress, not evolve. The multimedia varieties for consuming information are considered a risky proposition. Could we be dumbed-down by the ever encroaching image? More people can read than ever before. The new illiteracy is born of a population who won't read. When we do read, we turn to 144 character tweet over a 3,000 word feature article.
Watching and listening is more passive than reading. Does watching and listening make our brains flabby? Is the titillation of all these mediums vying for our attention making us act like a nation of Attention Deficit Disorder patients? Who can read an instruction manual anymore before turning the gadget on? How many of us read the paper before we check for texts, emails and voice-mail or surf the web? Not me.
Some people get recovery-lazy too. The seduction of living recovery inside a 164 page border is that “experts” wield mastery over novices indefinitely. No continuing education is needed. When I got clean and sober, I was seeking. I was asking some big questions and owning up to my lacking. I wanted to know, I felt compelled to try something new. Do I still seek with the same zeal?
Thinking about it now, I have seasons of seeking. There are times when I coast and times when I roll up my sleeves and search. I think there is a time for reflection and a time to engage the world; a time to take in and a time to put it out there. Constant self-absorption would not be healthy living. In the same way, resting on my laurels indefinitely wouldn’t be helpful to me, or helpful to others either. If I stop reading, I am no better off than someone who can’t read. I expect that I would get overinvested in my beliefs if I don’t expose myself to new ones.
I think a beliefs or a current world-view is like a snake’s skin. They protect us and make us feel safe but they also constrain us. The snake’s continued growth is dependent on shedding the old skin and it is a chore to wrestle out of the old skin. If my beliefs don’t periodically get pushed out of the way by new ideas, I won’t grow either.
Struggling through a new book that isn’t pleasant can be like the snake wrything out of her or his skin. It takes time, I would rather be doing other things, but my growth depends on it.
I am curious to see how the word “book” evolves in our everyday lexicon. Is a book the paper and binding or is it the organization of thoughts inside the covers? Old words like desktop, file and page have survived through alterations in definition. A desktop was once a surface on a piece of furniture that we worked at. It is now carefully crafted 1s and 0s.
So will the word “book” be with us for many more generations, even after they are no longer made with paper and binding or found in libraries or book stores? Will book refer to the collection of organized thoughts, the story, the thesis and/or the creativity?
People are musing about a new style of future-shock where we digress, not evolve. The multimedia varieties for consuming information are considered a risky proposition. Could we be dumbed-down by the ever encroaching image? More people can read than ever before. The new illiteracy is born of a population who won't read. When we do read, we turn to 144 character tweet over a 3,000 word feature article.
Watching and listening is more passive than reading. Does watching and listening make our brains flabby? Is the titillation of all these mediums vying for our attention making us act like a nation of Attention Deficit Disorder patients? Who can read an instruction manual anymore before turning the gadget on? How many of us read the paper before we check for texts, emails and voice-mail or surf the web? Not me.
Some people get recovery-lazy too. The seduction of living recovery inside a 164 page border is that “experts” wield mastery over novices indefinitely. No continuing education is needed. When I got clean and sober, I was seeking. I was asking some big questions and owning up to my lacking. I wanted to know, I felt compelled to try something new. Do I still seek with the same zeal?
Thinking about it now, I have seasons of seeking. There are times when I coast and times when I roll up my sleeves and search. I think there is a time for reflection and a time to engage the world; a time to take in and a time to put it out there. Constant self-absorption would not be healthy living. In the same way, resting on my laurels indefinitely wouldn’t be helpful to me, or helpful to others either. If I stop reading, I am no better off than someone who can’t read. I expect that I would get overinvested in my beliefs if I don’t expose myself to new ones.
I think a beliefs or a current world-view is like a snake’s skin. They protect us and make us feel safe but they also constrain us. The snake’s continued growth is dependent on shedding the old skin and it is a chore to wrestle out of the old skin. If my beliefs don’t periodically get pushed out of the way by new ideas, I won’t grow either.
Struggling through a new book that isn’t pleasant can be like the snake wrything out of her or his skin. It takes time, I would rather be doing other things, but my growth depends on it.