WHAT TO SAY AFTER ALL HAS BEEN SAID
Read below or click and listen!
http://jimreedbooks.com/mp3/rapt.mp3
What in the world would somebody like me have to say to a rapt audience had I the opportunity to say something useful?
I never know the answer to that question, but that does not prevent me from accepting invitations to speak before all kinds of groups large and small, young and old, literary and non-literary. People invite me to speak or teach, and I almost always accept. For instance, this coming Sunday at the Alabaster Library I’ll be speaking on the topic(s) “How To Become Your Own Book” and “What to Keep and What to Toss.”
The first is all about the joy of writing, how to find it, how to keep it, how to do it, how to stop doing it if it isn’t joyful (see my outline at http://www.jimreedbooks.com/become.html )…the second is in answer to the age-old question that we all ask eventually: Do I need to keep this or throw it away or donate it or stomp it or re-gift it or sell it? (I have the answer, though you might not like hearing it).
How does all this running about and making public appearances fit in with my otherwise hermit lifestyle, the lifestyle of a bookish bookie who writes books, sells books, reads books, edits books, purchases books, gifts books, donates books?
Well, here are a few answers to that question:
1. Making speeches, conducting seminars, teaching…all serve to get me out of the shop, out of my shell, re-connect me with the general public I tend to hide from most of the time. I obviously-and reluctantly-need some social contact now and then.
2. Doing all this public stuff allows me to spread the gospel of respecting old things, old memories. It’s important to recognize the past as part of our journey into the future. It comforts and sustains us, teaches us what works and what doesn’t work, what is right and what isn’t right. We don’t just wake up one morning wise…we have to travel forth and experience life in order to learn much of anything worth learning.
3. Going forth introduces me and my hideaway (Reed Books/The Museum of Fond Memories/The Library of Thought) to folks who long to know such a place exists somewhere in the world. Believe it or not, after 30 years of my owning the shop, most people still do not know it exists. Each day, new visitors arrive at the door saying, ”Why didn’t I know about this? Awesome!”
I get a kick showing them around or leaving them alone to wander through the looking-glass all by themselves. They almost always find a treasure or two they don’t want to live without.
4. Wandering around telling my tales gives me a chance to hear other peoples’ tales, too…and everybody has them! Some even become so excited that they begin to write them down, after I’ve simply given permission for them to do so. It’s an amazing thing to behold.
And so on.
There are other reasons for getting Out There and sharing myself, but these will do for a start.
Every day is a new reason for leaving a legacy of respect for the past, appreciation for the present, and hope for each future day we can make better in some minuscule way.
Let’s get out there and do it alone together
© 2010 A.D. Jim Reed