Listen to Jim: http://www.jimreedbooks.com/mp3/bookieman.mp3 or read on…
BEWARE THE BOOKIE MAN!
We fellow People of the Words are a breed lying fallow at the edge of an unreasoning society, a truncated society that values but little the World of Thought, the World of Reflection, the World of Thinking-Things-Out-Before-Acting.
Wouldn’t you say about three to four per cent of the barely educable planet actually cherishes the idea of Seeing Beyond dogma and cast-iron rules and comfortable habit and imprisoning ritual? I don’t meet many folks in this category, but I recognize them instantly and appreciate them excessively.
Not that I don’t enjoy the other ninety-six per cent of humanity, but it’s awfully difficult to conduct a discussion of just about anything beyond what they’ve been instructed to think by tradition, media, wily Fox, artful politician, manipulative corporate power. By now, I know all their rants by heart, since they are repeatedly injected into the ethos and comfortably worn like an old jacket or, in some cases, a scratchy burlap shirt.
I don’t mind their knowing only what they know and nothing else—perhaps that’s what they are capable of. But I do mind it when they don’t care to listen to my rants as carefully as I listen to theirs. As every teen-ager since time began says, “It’s just not fair!”
Anyhow, those of us comprising the tiny palmful of Think-Beyonders must sally forth and continue to keep a few fresh thoughts and ideas alive, hoping that a generation or two beyond will adopt some of them and make them blossom.
It is for this reason that many of us writers write, even when we’re not certain there are any readers at all. We keep plying our trade because to give up and abandon it would be insulting not only to our Muse, but to the Hopeful Universe at large.
It is why the book shop/Museum of Fond Memories clings and endures and thrives. It has to. We four per cent need something to read, something to think, something to contemplate—even if it doesn’t fit, isn’t our size, won’t quite cling to the culture.
We know we have a purpose, we just don’t know what it is. But we do know the effort is worthwhile
© Jim Reed 2011 A.D.