The first step is to stop thinking about paper. For practice, try to go to Barnes and Noble after 9:30pm, because that’s when the darkness makes reality a bit more flexible. Going alone makes it easier, especially on your first try.
Instead of thinking about paper, start by remembering that each book is a person. That’s not a romantic thought, it’s a flesh-and-blood fact. Realize that.
If you’re having trouble, think about the masks we wear. Think back to the last time you appeared one way and felt another.
Think about how much you struggle with understanding the hearts of the people you love – how little you can tell about the person by watching them meander in a social gathering.
Think about what the world would be like if everyone pulled of their masks. I’m not talking about physical skin. I’m talking about a world where people’s hearts are naked – the beautiful and the ugly parts.
Think about what life would be like if we could skip all the preliminary fronts and run-of-the-mill questions, and get to the nitty-gritty of our lives. The real struggles, the deepest joys, the sincerest loves would be exposed in high-definition.
Then, think about how people as books are often more real than people as skin and bone. If you need a further convincing, start by looking at a PostSecret collection.
Thought is not static because life is not static. There are actions going on here. There are thoughts powerful enough to murder millions of souls. Thoughts springing from a vibrant love that saved millions more. These thoughts are NOT a painting on a wall, because they are alive. They've done things that would make your own heart explode – that would comfort you, and shake you to your very core. And there are thousands of them – each of them is its own universe – not physical. It’s what driven the very core of the physical – in the widest imaginable variety of ways, and then some.
It’s not your imagination. It’s real. These people are real. And the books are more real than the people themselves.
W.E.B. DuBois was described as a rather soft-spoken person by Claude McKay – but read his books, and you will find out why his ideas are still setting black people’s minds on fire around the world.
Picture the penniless, marginal artist Adolf Hitler in a jail cell, a vision growing in his mind, scratching away the ideas that would kill millions and horrify billions more.
Paul, discouraged in the last book he wrote, scrawling down his heart and soul, deserted by most of his friends in a dark and damp stone prison cell – and the influence his words have had over the last two thousand years.
Socrates, chatting with Plato. A small conversation on a small corner of the earth that influenced the course of the last 5000 years immeasureably.
They are here. Walking, talking, available in all their spirit and gusto. The most sincere, heartbroken souls – to the deepest joys of the boldest martyrs -- to the ones who found secrets to laughter. The people who started revolutions, bound kingdoms, fought for rights, denied rights, controlled public opinion, suffered under public opinion … thousands of them. Right here. There is no paper – just their spirits –alive.
And think about the problems in your life. The world’s smartest and wisest advice-givers are here, available to help you out with your problems -- your wisdom can connect to theirs. They’ll also help you better understand and deal with the ones you care about.
So that’s step one. Stop thinking about the paper. Browse through the shelves, look at the names on the shelves, imagine what their spirits look like, and listen to the silence speak their cries, voice their laughter, and echo their whispers.
Step 2 is to think about writing without thinking about paper. Paper is flat – it can make the writing seem one-dimensional. It’s not. Every spirit is expressing itself through language better than almost 100% of the people in history. How many people in the last ten thousand years have written something down? Hundreds and Hundreds of trillions of words – and these are the ones selected as the most important right now.
What that means is that these words are more than just words. There is a reason they were chosen. There’s a shallowness to the words that appeals to many. Appreciate that. There’s a depth to the words that exposes many. Search for it. It’s a living depth that’s alive and active in your own heart, in the writer’s heart, in his own culture. Breath it in. Sink into it. Don’t be satisfied with the surface, but don’t leave it behind. Take the precious words – the song of countless souls sung in one of the best ways possible – and breath it in the core of your soul. You will find that the reality of life is greater than you were ever able to imagine.
Think about each writer, pondering over each word…picking it from the depths of their being, and giving it to you.
Step 3 is to think about the paper. Most people in the bookstore are physically dead. I could say a bunch of poetic stuff about how they are one with the earth – but I believe in heaven and hell, so I would be lying if I did all that. But my point is that the paper shows that it’s important to keep the spirits of these people alive on earth.
Think of the old testament scribe – a long, unkempt beard, hunched over at sixty from forty years of transcribing the Torah, savoring every word and having no regrets.
Think of the monk in the monastery doing the same. Of Martin Luther defiantly writing a German Bible in custody, then presenting the precious sheets of paper to the common masses and bringing a corrupt Catholic church to its knees. Of the constant search over thousands of years to come up with the smooth, white material you have in your hand right now. Of the 6000 years it took until Gutenberg came up with the idea of a printing press – an idea that, legend has it, came to him “like a ray of light.”
Of the value of this paper – how, before the printing press, only the most wealthy could afford to crack open a book. And because they realized a piece of what you are becoming aware of right now, the wealthy would pay a considerable fortune to get their hands on the words in front of you right now.
Think that you could read for the rest of your life – and there would still be books in Barnes and Noble, right now, that you wouldn’t have touched.
Read a poem. Savor the moment. Smell the page. Gaze at the living spirit crying out to you from it. If you do it right, you will be in a state of overwhelming euphoria.
And perhaps, while you feel the chains break free on Frederick Douglass’ wrists, or a sword starts to pierce your own heart as you partake in the depths of Sylvia Plath’s suicidal despair, or you close your eyes as you feel (for the first time) the heart of the blues in Langston Hughes’ “The Weary Blues,” or you are overwhelmed upon entering paradise as you finish C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series with “The Last Battle," you will find it hard not to enthusiastically agree with the refrain:
“I LOVE Barnes and Noble!”
Instead of thinking about paper, start by remembering that each book is a person. That’s not a romantic thought, it’s a flesh-and-blood fact. Realize that.
If you’re having trouble, think about the masks we wear. Think back to the last time you appeared one way and felt another.
Think about how much you struggle with understanding the hearts of the people you love – how little you can tell about the person by watching them meander in a social gathering.
Think about what the world would be like if everyone pulled of their masks. I’m not talking about physical skin. I’m talking about a world where people’s hearts are naked – the beautiful and the ugly parts.
Think about what life would be like if we could skip all the preliminary fronts and run-of-the-mill questions, and get to the nitty-gritty of our lives. The real struggles, the deepest joys, the sincerest loves would be exposed in high-definition.
Then, think about how people as books are often more real than people as skin and bone. If you need a further convincing, start by looking at a PostSecret collection.
Thought is not static because life is not static. There are actions going on here. There are thoughts powerful enough to murder millions of souls. Thoughts springing from a vibrant love that saved millions more. These thoughts are NOT a painting on a wall, because they are alive. They've done things that would make your own heart explode – that would comfort you, and shake you to your very core. And there are thousands of them – each of them is its own universe – not physical. It’s what driven the very core of the physical – in the widest imaginable variety of ways, and then some.
It’s not your imagination. It’s real. These people are real. And the books are more real than the people themselves.
W.E.B. DuBois was described as a rather soft-spoken person by Claude McKay – but read his books, and you will find out why his ideas are still setting black people’s minds on fire around the world.
Picture the penniless, marginal artist Adolf Hitler in a jail cell, a vision growing in his mind, scratching away the ideas that would kill millions and horrify billions more.
Paul, discouraged in the last book he wrote, scrawling down his heart and soul, deserted by most of his friends in a dark and damp stone prison cell – and the influence his words have had over the last two thousand years.
Socrates, chatting with Plato. A small conversation on a small corner of the earth that influenced the course of the last 5000 years immeasureably.
They are here. Walking, talking, available in all their spirit and gusto. The most sincere, heartbroken souls – to the deepest joys of the boldest martyrs -- to the ones who found secrets to laughter. The people who started revolutions, bound kingdoms, fought for rights, denied rights, controlled public opinion, suffered under public opinion … thousands of them. Right here. There is no paper – just their spirits –alive.
And think about the problems in your life. The world’s smartest and wisest advice-givers are here, available to help you out with your problems -- your wisdom can connect to theirs. They’ll also help you better understand and deal with the ones you care about.
So that’s step one. Stop thinking about the paper. Browse through the shelves, look at the names on the shelves, imagine what their spirits look like, and listen to the silence speak their cries, voice their laughter, and echo their whispers.
Step 2 is to think about writing without thinking about paper. Paper is flat – it can make the writing seem one-dimensional. It’s not. Every spirit is expressing itself through language better than almost 100% of the people in history. How many people in the last ten thousand years have written something down? Hundreds and Hundreds of trillions of words – and these are the ones selected as the most important right now.
What that means is that these words are more than just words. There is a reason they were chosen. There’s a shallowness to the words that appeals to many. Appreciate that. There’s a depth to the words that exposes many. Search for it. It’s a living depth that’s alive and active in your own heart, in the writer’s heart, in his own culture. Breath it in. Sink into it. Don’t be satisfied with the surface, but don’t leave it behind. Take the precious words – the song of countless souls sung in one of the best ways possible – and breath it in the core of your soul. You will find that the reality of life is greater than you were ever able to imagine.
Think about each writer, pondering over each word…picking it from the depths of their being, and giving it to you.
Step 3 is to think about the paper. Most people in the bookstore are physically dead. I could say a bunch of poetic stuff about how they are one with the earth – but I believe in heaven and hell, so I would be lying if I did all that. But my point is that the paper shows that it’s important to keep the spirits of these people alive on earth.
Think of the old testament scribe – a long, unkempt beard, hunched over at sixty from forty years of transcribing the Torah, savoring every word and having no regrets.
Think of the monk in the monastery doing the same. Of Martin Luther defiantly writing a German Bible in custody, then presenting the precious sheets of paper to the common masses and bringing a corrupt Catholic church to its knees. Of the constant search over thousands of years to come up with the smooth, white material you have in your hand right now. Of the 6000 years it took until Gutenberg came up with the idea of a printing press – an idea that, legend has it, came to him “like a ray of light.”
Of the value of this paper – how, before the printing press, only the most wealthy could afford to crack open a book. And because they realized a piece of what you are becoming aware of right now, the wealthy would pay a considerable fortune to get their hands on the words in front of you right now.
Think that you could read for the rest of your life – and there would still be books in Barnes and Noble, right now, that you wouldn’t have touched.
Read a poem. Savor the moment. Smell the page. Gaze at the living spirit crying out to you from it. If you do it right, you will be in a state of overwhelming euphoria.
And perhaps, while you feel the chains break free on Frederick Douglass’ wrists, or a sword starts to pierce your own heart as you partake in the depths of Sylvia Plath’s suicidal despair, or you close your eyes as you feel (for the first time) the heart of the blues in Langston Hughes’ “The Weary Blues,” or you are overwhelmed upon entering paradise as you finish C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia series with “The Last Battle," you will find it hard not to enthusiastically agree with the refrain:
“I LOVE Barnes and Noble!”
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