The weather is bad and I need something to read. “Nope, nothing here.” he says, glancing quickly past the hundred or so, books in front of him.
A notable author once said, in response to a question about whether we read more these days, that ‘libraries are full of books that no one reads.’
As for my own personal library, mostly non-fiction, in front of which I am sitting, I go there less often these days. Those unused books look quite impressive, all lined up there on the shelves, great authors all. Good stuff. I used them for the answers I sought at the time I put them there.
Now they are more a source of questions than answers. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe there are enough answers already? Maybe my books are like my blog……mere information? Who the heck needs more information? Is the good stuff all hidden in the language?
Is our language mostly a stagnant language of commerce, making it unavailable to use to speak a deeper, more authentic language of personal discovery?
Why is it so difficult to truly express those deeper tuggings that come from the heart? Is it because we continually try to keep the language ‘pure’? Make sure it has us look our best? Make sure the syntax is all in order?
Maybe that’s why the libraries are empty. Where are the books written by the true movers and shakers? Where are the ‘sons-‘o’-bitches’ who write about their world and how they really see it?
They are among the few who speak from the heart, authentically, and we hunger for more of that!
Now, I’m not talking about those who express themselves from behind their words of ‘fiction’.
The language of the heart. Maybe that’s the realm of the poet, who leaves us with morsels of thought that we are invited to savor according to our own taste, to have us get excited at things that matter for ourselves. A key to opening our own passions and release them on our unsuspecting communities! Ha! That’s usually why we don’t. We think it’s rocking the boat too much.
Maybe closer to the truth, the ‘expertise’ that we seek, that which is captured in books, is often not the real expertise that is played out on the field of life, but mere commentary…..on commentary.
The expert has limited facility to recognize his own expertise. Why? Because he is immersed in ‘being’ who he is, not standing back observing himself. This ‘beingness’ is very difficult to put into words that anyone else can understand unless they have had the same experiences.
Could we watch another in action and know, with certainty, what produces his results? No. We are not privilege to his inner soul. But we think we are. We think we can capture and place his wisdom on the written page.
What matters is to note that what has been written about, even by the experts themselves, is not exactly the way it came down. It was a memory and that’s a problem. Add to this, the problems of global translations and we can see that much of the contents of our literature ‘gets lost in the translation’.
Maybe what would matter is if we could just speak the truth on the page exactly the way things happened in real life. Maybe that would have us be understood, at least in our own communities, for starters. Maybe we wouldn’t sell so many books but they would matter more, be more meaningful and folks would empty the library shelves, reaching out for the authenticity of participating in a real life expression.
Rich