On its surface, my wildest dream seems rather tame. Curing all of society’s ills through books. But it’s not merely one of my nerdy pursuits. When I hear someone say something uninformed, my impulse is to say, “Oh, you should read such and such book” as if, magically, by having read such and such book, the person will be brought closer to enlightenment and will make a positive contribution to society.
I no longer believe that I have all the answers. Oh, if you wanted to know the answer to anything, you should’ve asked me when I was 17. The best I can do now, is recommend a few books and hope that you’ll use reading to fuel positive societal contributions. It’s a whimsical wish, I know. (By the way, “whimsy” is a Virgo’s way of saying, “I too can be creatively illogical. I just don’t live there.”)
What’s the book that will motivate us to share, value one another and respect our differences? Has it been written or are we all writing together? What kind of book would it even be? Religious? Economic? Philosophical? Scientific? Would the ideal be a combination of all things? Or would it narrowly focus on one everlasting truth from which everything else spring forth? Or should it be a magical book that whenever you open it, the knowledge you need at the time, will present itself upon the pages in a manner that not only resonates with you but motivates you to enact a positive action?
Surely this book would put us in such a safe place that it wouldn’t need trigger warnings nor threaten to take away our guns, right? There’s my whimsy showing again. Wars have been fought because one group thought their book, describing their idyllic way of life, was THE answer. But this book couldn’t be like any of those. With all of our access to knowledge, would yet another book be just like another drop of water cascading over us and not absorbed?
And for anyone thinking, “Well, clearly it would have to be a series of books,” may I ask you, when was the last time you consulted an encyclopedia? And no, I’m NOT counting Wikipedia.
A book to cure the human condition. If such a thing even exists, what would our world look like once its knowledge was revealed?
Keep reading.