Book Learnin'

I'm writing this post for two reasons. One is that I've been writing several posts on books recently (here, here, and here,), about stuff I've learned from books. Some of which I didn't know I knew until I wrote the posts. I just started talking about a subject, and saw where it took me.

I once wrote a poem called 'Books', which was about books being carriers of ideas. Any books, not just textbooks. Any and every book has ideas contained within it. Ideas which go together with other ideas; which go along with or collide with, sometimes producing totally new ideas.

So, that's just to say that I've learned more from books than I will probably ever know. Even just a few books push together and against each other, forming new shapes, new patterns; and I've read more than a few books. Literally more than I can remember, so how many different ideas have come into being and become something more, I will never know.

Fiction clashes with poetry and philosophy, and mixes with mythology and theology, all to produce a new, fresh view of the world; of the whole of creation. Ideas are dangerous things; they live and grow in directions you never thought they might. And can change everything you thought you knew.

And the other reason is that when I started writing about books, I did it because I didn't think I'd have as much to write about in the 'real world':- i.e. the one where ideas change things. But recently, I've discovered I'm reading a lot less than I was; and one of the reasons for that is that I'm doing more. More different things, out there with people. Maybe it's time to do something with those ideas...