What Scares Me

Today I was at my old school's fall fair, and the 7th graders were selling used books. As I wandered by the table, I overheard a conversation between a parent and a teacher helping with the sale. One asked "Do you ever think that maybe, one day, we won't be able to do this? Will books become obsolete, something you only see in pawn shops or thrift stores?" The other contemplated for a moment, then replied "Well, maybe people will show up to things like this so they can buy books and show their kids. Or kids will come by and ask 'What are these? You used to read like this?'"

Thoughts like this one scare me. Will books in their printed form really become obsolete? I'm somehow inclined to think they will not. Maybe it's wishful thinking, or obstinate optimism in the face of the oncoming annihilation, but I truly believe that printed books will live on. There's nothing like holding a book in your hand, turning its pages, seeing the typeface and the little nuances in the text. Maybe the binding is a little different on your copy than on someone else's, or the paper is a different texture. You can't mark up an e-book, write notes on it, place flowers or memorabilia between its pages for later contemplation. The smell of a book can bring back memories, as can that little smiley face you drew next to a quote that resonated upon the time of reading. You can't spill coffee or water on an e-book and expect it to survive. That small stain on page 73 of your beloved copy of an old classic won't appear in an e-book. Those blades of grass you used as bookmarks won't exist. All that is good and comforting about being able to hold and feel and experience a book in a physical sense just isn't the same with an e-book.

But then I stop and think. Here's me, writing my thoughts on a computer. Cold, clinical type, not hand written, no small pieces of me embedded in a page. Only words in their most basic, impersonal sense. No sense of personality, other than in the reading and the execution of the writing. This poses an interesting question: am I hypocritical? Or merely judgmental? The fact that I may be undermining my own ideas really scares me. That, or I'm just over-thinking as usual.

Over The Shoulder

There's something intriguing about the little snippets of other people's lives. A few words of a cell phone conversation, the book they're reading on the train, strains of a song emanating from too loud headphones, glimpses of a computer screen. Today was one of those days. My dad, my brother, and I went out to coffee with a friend of my dad's from high school. The place we went is a quick walk from our house. It's a funky coffeehouse/ restaurant/ lounge kind of place, with couches and tables and a lot of people working on computers, reading, or chatting with friends. There's always a great mix of people in there- young, old, be-suited and in jeans and plaid flannel shirts, heels, running shoes, Mohawks and cornrows. Because it's a pretty open seating plan, it's easy to end up sitting next to someone on the same couch, across the same table, or with their chair opposite yours. It's also easy to eavesdrop a little on other people's lives.

About halfway through my chai, a young Asian guy took an armchair right against the couch I was sitting on. I didn't pay much attention until he took out a laptop and began to type. Naturally, I glanced over his shoulder to see what he was doing. What appeared on the screen looked like the beginning of a story, clearly fiction, about someone named Gabriel, after the angel Gabriel who told Mary she was pregnant, because the character was born on Christmas. I was immediately pulled in, and wanted to read more, but I couldn't. In the almost half an hour between the time he sat down and we left, he had about 4 sentences. I watched him change that little tiny snip of a paragraph about six times, each time in a different way. There was one sentence he wrote that I particularly liked, but he deleted it.

That deletion almost convinced me to tap him on the shoulder and say "Hey. That was really good. Keep it." But I didn't. Most people don't appreciate being accosted by random strangers about their work. Especially if that stranger is reading over your shoulder.

I wish the world worked like that. I love talking to random people, even though I'm shy, and I wish I could just tap people on the shoulder and talk to them about what they're working on. With more open communication, the world might end up being a better place. And that one difference in the sentence might make or break whatever he was writing. You never know. Sometimes all it takes is one comment to change destiny, fate, or whatever you want to call it. At least that's how it should be.

We make choices every day, some simple and some more complex. With everything we do, we influence others. Each little snippet our of our day, witnessed by someone else, can set off a chain reaction of unprecedented events. Just something to think about.