The Good Book

As my years wear on me I find myself less and less able to feign interest in the vast majority of man made entertainment. Politics seem a pathedic parody of all that once was life, and most social environments seem decadent or fraudulent. The more I come to terms with my perception of the world the more I leave behind the mindset of my contemporaries, and the better qualified to take it all in without letting the glory and the gastly disturb the calm waters of my consciousness. The only real thing I've ever found any solice in is a good book. Anything well written was transcribed for the ages, perpetually immune to the passage of time and fluctuations of humanities temperment. What I would call a great book is a volume that cracks the shell of your personality to show you a world you would have never known otherwise. Endless vistas and pertinent lessons await those who would learn from the experience of those few humans who had the vision and vocabulary to turn but one small existence into a window into the mind of mankind. Countless personal problems have I overcome with nothing but a stirring story from another age. It is easy to lose ones head these days. We are inundated with so much fantasy and so many lies that sitting by oneself to scour the pages of the past for guidance has become something of an atavistic practice, usually left to the recluses of academia to comfort their lazy lives. The more i see people turn away from books to 'the neon god we made' the more I realize that it must be so. Modern people have very little in common with those who passed before, and less so with each passing day. We have entered a brave new world in which all cultural, religious and political sanctuaries are being razed to the ground in order to make way for the passions of the present. Without ever having to admit it so, we have opted for mass produced people programmed for 13 merciless years in favor of the insolent individuals that once walked this earth. I sometimes sit and wonder if i'm the last of a dying breed, or part of something new, which has yet to take full shape and thus be acknowledged. Whatever the case may be, I find immeasurable consolation in the charm, wit and brilliance of those torch bearers that kept the flame lit for so many centuries. Though their bodies be turned to dust and their names all but forgotten, their contribution is still greatly appreciated by me. No matter how alone this life may make me feel, a reasuring word in the worthiness of human life is only a page away.