My old friend Joel, that merry old soul, has asked me some questions. I will try and answer them.
1) What is your quest?
Right now, it’s to get through this quarter of graduate school. Long term, I’ve been exploring this idea I have regarding libraries and their virtual spaces. Namely, how those spaces can be redeisgned to foster community and collaboration. It’s exciting stuff.
2) What are bellybuttons for?
Well, they’re holdovers from the womb. They’re also great reminders of where we came from: our mother’s womb. That’s a pretty radical thing that I certainly don’t think about everyday, but the bellybutton helps remind me.
3) Do the books ever speak to you? what do they say? do you talk back? what do you say?
Yes, but usually just one at a time. It’s a strange thing, how many books I’ve read, and sometimes I think: why do I keep doing this? The only answer I seem to come up with is something similar to what Machivelli (it surprises me too!) wrote about his library:
The evening being come, I return home and go to my study; at the entrance I pull off my peasant- clothes, covered with dust and dirt, and put on my noble court dress, and thus becomingly re-clothed I pass into the ancient courts of the men of old, where, being lovingly received by them, I am fed with that food which is mine alone; where I do not hesitate to speak with them, and to ask for the reason of their actions, and they in their benignity answer me; and for four hours I feel no weariness, I forget every trouble, poverty does not dismay, death does not terrify me; I am possessed entirely by those great men.
I don’t really think I can improve upon that statement.
4) Expound on the meaning of Love.
This gave me fits for a long time. Love. And not in a good way. For a long time, it seems that I thought of Love as simply Not Being Alone. I know now that it is so much more than that. Oh so much more. It beggars my ability to describe it, quite simply, with its multitudes and breadth and depth.
5) If you were an antiquated saying, what antiquated saying would you be?
There’s a quote from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales in the Nun’s Priest’s Tale:
Taketh the fruyt, and lat the chaf be stille.
Or, loosely translated, separate the wheat from the chaff. Or, take what’s good and leave the rest. This goes along pretty well with my belief that value can be found in anything, if you only pursue the good bits in it. There’s so much of everything in this world, being able to separate out the good (useful) from the bad (not useful) seems like the most valuable skill there is.
Oh, and Chanticleer the Rooster? Not so good at separating the wheat from the chaff…
*****
Oh, and if you want me to ask you some questions (as the game seems to be played), feel free to leave a comment.