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SPEAK SOFTLY AND CARRY A SMALL, OLD BOOK
The Word Scribe purposely trod the street of the big city in the mid-morning hour. Looking left, right, below and above, he attempted to imprint his surroundings in a secure place in his mind for later reference. He felt the need to remember everything in sight. He loved the notations he constantly refined inside the small book he always carried apocket.
This particular day, the Word Scribe entered the quiet confines of his shop, locked the door behind him, and began reviewing and recording his impressions.
He wrote these words:
Thoughts are precious.
Thoughts must not be allowed to fall listlessly from your mind and tumble to the floor, eventually rolling under something where you can’t get to them.
Thoughts are mysteries and revelations unto themselves. The mysterious thoughts must be retained for later surgical examination. The revelations must be carefully described and regarded as if they constituted an index to Life Itself.
The Word Scribe completed his ritualistic notations, closed the small book and placed it in his pocket.
What did I learn today? the Word Scribe asked himself in particular.
He smiled and realized that he was not quite prepared to explain what he had learned, that more writing and editing would have to take place before that could happen.
He was comforted by the fact that his thousands of notes, his hundreds upon hundreds of stories, were already released to the cosmos and floated around encased within notebooks and stacks of paper and software programs…existing as tweets and books and facebook entries and blogs and blasts…carrying on into the air as broadcasts, as echoes from the many speeches and performances he had delivered.
But the Word Scribe also knew, as all word scribes know, that regardless of how many places his words and stories were sequestered, no matter how many banks of red clay held them close, no matter how many people now living would remember and repeat these words and stories…he knew that there was always a chance that, once he faded from the trodden streets, those words and stories might disappear with him.
The Word Scribe used to worry about his Legacy, whatever that was.
But now that he had written so much, performed so much, related and recorded so much, he was beginning to realize that the Legacy meant nothing. He was beginning to realize that the pleasurable and exciting and roller coaster life he had led and was leading, was all that really mattered.
He knew at last that the trip, the exploration, was the thing.
And if, someday, an inquisitive graduate student working on an obscure literary subject should find his words and think them important enough to turn into a footnote in a soon-to-be-filed-away thesis…that would be acceptable.
The joy he felt simply living his words was the one thing he hoped others would discover on their own
© Jim Reed 2014 A.D.