I’m kicking books at a sixth-grade level

Sometimes I get all reflective about my ponderings, and it’s kind of goofy. This is one of those times, so I hope you’ll bear with me.

I’ve been kicking around this idea of collecting these thoughts into a book-type format. Admittedly, part of the motivation is to make a buck. I just as well come out and say that. My idealistic young self of four years ago would have been appalled at that, but I’ve learned a bit about reality since then. I’m now paying for the education I was receiving then, I’m now paying for my room and board, I’m paying for my own gas and my own car. I can’t rely on mommy and daddy anymore, and I’ve learned that life is hard. There’s a point where an artist has to sell them self if they hope to survive on their art. The only pure art is financially independent.

Of course I’m also realistic enough to know that a collection of my late-night ponderings won’t exactly make a lot of money. Maybe a buck is a good estimate. So knowing that making a profit is a slim prospect, it becomes more of the joy of capturing and appropriately packaging almost five years worth of artist expression. It’s more a project than a business venture, though it’s certainly a mix of both.

I read a few old entries tonight, and it’s bizarre to see how much things have changed. When I started these thoughts I was a sophomore in college. I had been dating a girl for almost three years. I was entering a very idealistic phase. I was beginning to leave some of the opinions of my youth behind and was starting to find my own way. A lot of contradictions exist.

In some ways I’m eager to see a collected volume, to see the inherent contradictions in a person’s life, to let them spill across the years. At some point in the past five years I’d probably be disappointed to see where I am now, paying a mortgage, working a 9 to 5 job (until recently anyway). Yet life goes where it will, and as much as we think we know what we want to do and where we want to go, we’re often dead-wrong.

There’s also something about a bound volume. As much as I love the computer, you can’t curl up with it on the couch and do some Sunday afternoon reading. Even with a curvy iBook you’re not going to last long. A book you can get comfortable with. You can write notes in the margins, you can underline favorite passages (the thought of someone underlining bits of my writing is oddly thrilling and intimidating). There’s an intimacy that exists between the printed page and a reader that the computer can’t duplicate. The computer can foster other intimacies, but books have that special something.

I’ll have to keep thinking about this. It’s an odd project to contemplate, especially something of such a non-stable nature. But I still see value in the difficulties, possibilities in the contradictions. We’ll have to see.

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