The Book is a Sacred Cave

"Without libraries, what do we have? No future and no past." - Ray Bradbury

Desire is a strange and dangerous animal. I have desired to write to you, but I have been at a loss for words. And then I remembered what I love.

I am in love with books. A deep, abiding love. It's a fundamental aspect of how I experience existence.

I think you might love books too. It's good to know you're out there, thinking about your favourite books.

I love books in their form and essence. I am not enamoured with them as mere data points, although I am not averse to using a Kindle if that is the only choice I have to access a particularly difficult-to-locate book.

There's a sadness to a book trapped within the prison of the Kindle or a screen. I grieve being unable to witness the design, and each book has its own smell.

I want to experience them all. I wish to disappear into every book ever written and rise again remade as a reflection of their wisdom.

There is no such thing as a bad book.

To consider each book as a whole world in itself.

Beholding it as a sacred object is where the essence of desire resides.

From both inside and outside, bearing witness to the knowledge contained within a book as it is transferred into the mind and imagination through the act of reading its pages.

I am possessed by the book and all it suggests about the human race. The book offers us an idea of redemption. If we can create books, hand knowledge and wisdom on to others, then the human race must have redeemable aspects.

Even at its lowest point, a book is an attempt to describe an aspect of the human experience. And if we are interested in evolution, we need to be able to hold the entirety of literature as a container, no matter how abhorrent a text may be.

There will be books that I will never read, which I should have read.

Then again, fate often offers a book at the perfect moment. A book can save you, show you the way, entrance you, and break a spell. There is nothing a book can't do. Within the libraries of the world, there is pure hope waiting to be discovered by a young mind, that when digested, will lead a child to remake and reimagine the world.

They're waiting for us to discover, lost archipelagos of wisdom.