Too Many Books

Too Many Books

Reading a post a friend made on a writer’s website about paring down the size of her office reminded me of when I had to face this task many years ago. In her post she talked about having too many books, and how disposing of them, would be like saying goodbye to an old friend. However I think books are akin to money, you can never have too much, or too many of either. When it comes to money it is always being recycled in one fashion or another. We earn it, we spend it, and some of it ends up in a bank to be saved. When we spend it, it  finds its way into someone else’s pocket, think of the quarters that someone painted blue and red onetime, they found their way all over the world. The same is true when we bank our money, the bank in one way or another recycles it back into the economy where it finds its way into yet someone else’s pocket. But how about those books, what becomes of them when we are ready to recycle

 My Reply

I had the same problem with books many years ago, and packed up well over 200 and drove them to a sailor's shelter in, Newport Rhode Island. I have often wondered in what parts of the world some of them might have ended up. It also gave me an idea for a short story, one about a particular book picked up by a seafarer, dropped off in another port only to be picked up again and again to continue its journey around the world. Oh the stories that book would have to tell.

What I neglected to mention in my reply was that in many of the books I had added several pages in the beginning as well as in the end, and in each started an entry of one sort or another, as well as adding my name and address in hopes that as the books were passed on from one to another entries would be made charting its course around the world, and that eventually one might find it way home to tell of its journey. Oh yes; what a story these books would now have to tell then.

Although none were ever returned, I was from the beginning left with so many questions as I parted with my old friends. I suppose first and foremost was; would any one of them  ever be picked up and carried off to begin some great adventure? Then the rest of the questions filled my daydreaming head. Who would pick them up? Since their new home was a shelter for traveling sailors, who were they, where did they come from, where would their journey take them from here? Would the new owner speak only English, or as a world traveler would he perhaps unlike me, be multi lingual?

 There is however  somewhat of a happy ending for at least one of my old friends. Several years later I received a letter from a sailor in Singapore that had picked up one of  several copies  of Moby Dick I had donated and he told how he had carried it all over the world with him. That in itself was rather apropos  I thought. In his letter he talked about how with English not being his first language, (ah another question answered) as well as other commitments, it had taken him over two years to complete the book. He also told how he was now going to pass the book onto a friend sailing around the world to begin yet another journey. One can only wonder,  if I wait long  enough might I someday learn of Moby Dicks latest adventures. Perhaps this time filled with additional intrigue, and romance? I guess only time will tell.

Hay River Project

An action packed adventure.

In the scientific community a theory existed that Neanderthal man didn’t just die out and was simply replaced my modern man. Some, a few; theorized that the two species, were able to, and did in fact interbreed producing what we now refer to as modern man. In 2010 DNA testing completed on over 2000 individuals from Europe and Asia proved conclusively that at least four percent of the Earth’s population is in fact directly descended from Neanderthal.

However; in September of 2002 a handful of scientists who for lack of concrete evidence opposed this theory and while on an archeological dig in Canada’s Northwest Territories stumbled into a secret world buried deep below the surface where it had remained hidden for over ten thousand years. A discovery that was about to shatter all theories as well as remove all doubt in their minds about where modern man came from. 

Dr. Matthew Prichard and friends would soon embark on the quest of a lifetime, delving into a world they know nothing about, a world whose knowledge could never be disclosed, a world whose knowledge could mean disaster to all.

Exercising Our Brains

 As a senior citizen on the downhill side of 70, one would think computers would be somewhat of a mystery. However my curiosity and fascination with computers began in the early 1980’s with the Texas Instrument TI-99, for those of you that don’t remember that particular model, be thankful; because the term, user friendly had not yet been coined. However this article is not about the computers themselves, but rather an area I had never ventured into; computer games, after all, they were something for kids to become totally addicted to, not adults, and especially not senior citizens. As parents and grandparents we are supposed to be the ones with enough wisdom to explain the perils of the time spent at these user friendly machines, rather than having an older daughter tell you; “Dad you spend way too much time playing that stupid game. What kind of an influence do you think that has on the kids?”

And yes, I discovered MMORPG’s, (Massively multiplayer online role-playing games), what a mouth full. MMORPG’s are simply games that one can purchase, download to their computer, and pay a monthly fee to play. The more popular games can be the most expensive to purchase, and cost in the area of $15.00 a month to play. Which one can justify the monthly fee by rationalizing that it’s rather inexpensive when you consider that $15.00 or so gives you 24/7 for an entire month’s entertainment. Hey, you can’t even go to a movie for that today; forget about seeing it over and over for an entire month, anytime of the day or night for that initial free. 

So where am I going with all this? Am I defending the hours, and hours of time spent in front of a computer, playing online games with your online community and friends who can be scattered across the country, and even around the world? Yes I am, or at least I hope I will be able to make some sense out of it as far as senior citizens go.

Computer games range in difficultly to play and master from extremely simple, to extremely complex, so complex that at first you think you would never be able to master them. This is something only kids can master, after all their brains are like sponges and they learn fast. You’re right in that thinking to some degree, as kids we do tend to learn faster, and learn and learn until we hit an age where we simply don’t need, or want to learn any more. We have learned all that we need to take us through the rest of our lives. All the years of learning, all the years of that thinking; we don’t have to do it anymore; well my friends this is the thinking that makes our brains stagnate, and after time learning new tasks becomes much more difficult. It’s no different than becoming physically docile and having our muscles waste away, so we exercise daily to stay in shape and prevent that from happening.  What about our brains? What happens when we become mentally docile? How do we exercise our brains to prevent that from happening? Thinking to our brains, is akin to physical exercise for our muscles. Thinking is how we exercise our brains. Ok; see where I’m headed?

I either write on a daily basis for anyone willing to pay my fee, or can be found working on my own projects, articles and short stories, or one of three novels I have in the works. With the research and reading and actual writing involved in putting an article or story together, one would think that’s a lot of exercise for our brains, and to some extent you’re right. But what about learning new tasks? I may have learned something I didn’t know before, like exactly how high Mt. Washington is, or how deep the Japanese Trench is, however I learned that using skills I have already polished over the years, not by learning new ones.

On the other hand; I am still very involved in computer games, ( yes at 67 years old) and what I’ve discovered is they keep you thinking every second, and the more complex games take a lot more thought and concentration, thus making you exercise that grey matter to its maximum potential. It’s mental exercise; and a lot of it. As I mentioned; computer games keep you thinking, plus there is so much to remember, ah, another key, memory. My memory is as I remember it 25 years ago, (no pun there) and those moments of CRS are for the most part a thing of the past. Can I attribute this all to computer games? Absolutely not, although my day is filled with mental exercise in one form or another, whether it be writing, research, or playing an MMORPG’s. What I’m trying to illustrate here is not that you run out and purchase an expensive gaming computer, but rather find some sort of mental exercise that suits you. Reading a few hours a day, writing if you’re so inclined and yes; if you really want to challenge that grey matter try an MMORPG.  And who knows, as some articles and research show, mental exercise can ward off the early onset of Alzheimer’s disease.  We exercise to stay fit and healthy, why not exercise our brains to the same extent?

J. Francis © 2011