Lately I’ve been checking out a lot of books from the library. I used to be quite a book person when I was young, especially in elementary school. Most of my fondest memories from when I lived in Enid, Oklahoma, and went to Hoover Elementary School involve me in the library reading a book on language or music or computers or something else that I’m still interested in today.
At the time I had no idea that I was probably seeding ideas and thoughts that would recur throughout my entire education. The ideas that have come most readily to me over the years often involve pieces of my experiences from a few key times in my life in which I immersed myself in some sort of media, such as all of the digital stuff my friends and I toyed around with in high school.
Reading all of these books lately has gotten me thinking about how I want to keep up after I leave Olin. With Wikipedia to whet my tastebuds, I have found countless subjects that I want to learn more about, but each thing I find leads to three more. I’m a bit overwhelmed with the sheer amount of stuff I want to know about.
I think once I graduate this May I will initially fill most of my newfound free time with books and music and perhaps some documentaries. Fiction doesn’t interest me much, so I will probably spend only just a little time with my Thomas Pynchon books.
If I had all of the money in the world, I would buy music all day long. Of all of the songs I’ve heard, there are far too many by artists whose other music I have never heard.
I don’t know if I can really portray how I feel about all of this stuff out there. I know that on her radio show Dr. Laura always says she doesn’t know how people can ever get bored with so many books in the world. I think that people get bored when they lack social stimulation, and books don’t really solve that. But I’m pretty happy with my social situation, so I feel I can heed her advice and dive in.
There’s this certain depth at which I used to immerse myself into books that just cannot be duplicated on the Internet and in flashy video games, movies, and television shows. I think what has happened is that I’ve rediscovered it.
