A Need to Know

My mother says this to me sometimes… I have a need to know.

I thought of it today while I was in my favorite bookstore.  It started out that I went there with three books, Imogene (a.k.a. Sexy MacBook), and my iPod.  That was all.

Well, there was also a light sweater, because I sometimes get cold when I’m there, my purse (which is pretty cool; I like to carry it around), my cell phone, my keys (the only thing in either hand; they were in my right), and a few other miscellaneous things, which I’d tossed into my computer bag.

None of that is terribly important, withholding the bit about my walking in with three books.  Three books that I wanted to read, no less.

If you’d like, you can ask me if any of those three books got even cracked…

…

You can ask, but the answer is no.

Because I walked in… my shoulders relaxed a bit… I scanned the new title rack… walked past the Nook guy into the fields of gold aisles of books.

And I was in my zone.

It’s really not a “zone” at all though, because I manage to see all the titles that I want to read, no matter where they are in the store…  I can just feel them beckoning to me.  It’s less like a “zone” and more like a flood gates opening.

I walk into the store, scan the new titles, go past the Nook guy, and

the flood gates open.

I have a need to know.

I want to read anything and everything all at once.  It’s truly a wonder that I only walked out of there with only two additional books.

The greater majority of my life I probably operate with a certain element or feeling of confusion. That slight sense of not understanding or not having quite enough information.

When I walk into my bookstore I feel all those same things, but also a drive to uncover all the secrets, the jewels of information, the pieces of information that will help me put together a semblance of understanding and find a resting place for some of my confusion.

It’s like when I walk in, my confusion becomes less overwhelming to me, because there’s Me.  My Confusion.  And Answers.  Three separate entities.  And all three are more manageable, because for once, their identities are not getting confused with one another.

I am not my Confusion.  My Confusion is not my Answer.  My Answer is not Me.

I’m not trying to make this sound like a “spiritual” experience, a kind of be-all-end-all-here-are-all-the-answers-type thing.  Because as many gems of understanding as I find, I also get a thousand more questions.  It’s not a one-stop-shop.

More like an archeological dig.

I can only uncover one stone at a time, one stair, one wall, but I feel – in my “need to know” – that each little piece brings me that much closer to maybe someday stepping back and seeing what I’ve been uncovering.  Like a castle, maybe.

That’s how I operate in my bookstore… like I’m on a dig. Bringing books in with me is of little to no use.  They are at least rocks I know how to uncover, i.e. read the book.  When I walk in there I see all the rocks I haven’t even started uncovering yet.  Or have started, but want to keep uncovering.

I walk in and I want to dig forever.

However, one cannot dig forever.  So I’ve finally put down my leaf trowel and brush, and come to tell you how today’s dig went.  Tomorrow I will dig a little with my best friend.  We will talk while we work and before the day is over we will put down our digging tools to note with pleasure that we see more of the castle than the day before.  We will sit down and lean back against our castle wall to relax and just enjoy each others company.

I Want To Read

Everything.

A Value Laden Life

Is what I want to live.  I want the things I believe in to intimately affect every aspect of my life.  One of those values is to live simply.

So in the last few weeks I have steadily been cleaning up and cleaning out all the shit in my life that serves no purpose, but to clutter my SOUL.  Three garbage bags have gone to the local second-hand shop (including about eight pairs of shoes; good riddance!) and one more to the trash.  I don’t have that much stuff in the first place, so I feel good about the amount that has exited my life.  But I’m not done either.

My stumbling point is books, because information is everything.  I collect it, store it, horde it, mull over it, eat it up.  When I’m having a hard time, it’s not shopping or anything like that, that cheers me up.  It’s new information, a new way of looking at my situation, learning someone else’s story, etc.

Problem is that I don’t have a particularly good memory.  The only thing I remember with fair efficiency is where to find what I want to know in books.

However, I never want to lose sight of this fact… that far more important than what I know, is how I live, think, and love people.  Someday when I’m full of wisdom, love, and inner peace, then I’d like to just have the few books that have been the most important in shaping who I became.

I’m not going to get there all at once, but with this idea in mind, I’m heading to see what I’m ready to discard of from my book shelfs.