When I was young I read voraciously. I was not of the norm. In the past I have
talked about my weight and myself so I won’t dwell on it. When I started reading it was an escape from
my contemporaries. It took me to place
where great people lived. My first
reading addiction was a biographical series about famous Americans. Lincoln, Washington, Edison, Nathan Hale,
Patrick Henry these were the idealistic characters I lived with.
Of course now I know these were hagiographic tomes designed
to inspire youth like myself. These were
more complex people, men and woman who still did great things mind you, but
their failings, their feet of clay were hidden from my view then. But that is not what this is about. I have missed reading. When I poured over
those pages I was in pure joy. Word
after word brought me pleasure.
As I grew my appetite for books became voracious. I read anything that wasn’t just pulp, science
fiction, surrealistic tales of life, political rants and the classics. Many
were new classics mostly late nineteenth century. In the past couple of weeks I
have reheard a book I read as a teen.
(Chris, please, please don’t let you blood pressure go up here). As I heard it I heard lyric poetry and I
heard voices crying to connect with something greater. I also heard disillusionment and a sense of
despair that was ever pervasive.
I am left to wonder now what would I get if I reread some
other books that were part of myself education cannon in my teens and
twenties? I know that early Kurt Vonnegut
has held up well particularly Mother Night.
I read that to my children as a bedtime story over a couple of weeks.
Ah the balance. I
want to continue to mentally grow and it seems foolish to go back and revisit
the books of my past. Maybe I will pull
an oral copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. That might be the only one that would make
sense.
The key thing is I have to make time for reading, writing
and thought.
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