Empty Bells

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

We are constantly formulating statements for the present. These are smothered in language and are meaningless and inconclusive parts of a debate that may or may not matter in the long run. Nobody listens to anything except when it agrees with their own prejudice.

Merton, 03-02-66 Journal (Paraphrased)

Sometimes I think I should just live detached from the political world. I dream from time to time of uncoupling the TV and the internet and just reading books for information. Books to be read must be at least 25 years and thus by their mere continued presence on the book shelf at the public library show their worth. Oh, they must be dog eared and smudged showing active reading by previous patrons. If a book is of some age and is still being read then maybe it does have worth. Nonfiction of course is preferred we are talking about ideas here. However some fiction will be considered. This would be because as is well known some ideas were so powerful their statement had to be crafted in fiction to allow their dissemination without the author being impaled for being a heretic.