Day 14: A Digital Age

Monday, Monday, can't trust that day.
But seriously.
All I had course-wise was my 9am lecture that wasn't held last week due to the holiday. So, it was the first time meeting Scotsman Roddy Smith, lecturer for my "Digital Age" course. The course was fine and well until we began to discuss how the digital age we're living in will eventually bring an end to hard-copy books.
Yes,  yes I know things will continue to become digitized, and I understand the benefits of it in many aspects: need less room for storage, more easily accessible for everyone, and less cost to students buying textbooks per se. BUT to talk about how in a few years no one will be given textbooks, only e-books, and everyone will have an e-reader, the same as the shift to smart phones that started a couple years ago, is slightly mortifying. And when I say slightly, I am using that lightly. Because truly, my emotions were caught off guard and my convictions about this digital reading phenomenon surfaced not long into the class discussion. Yes, books will exist even after/if they stop being created, because no one is going to burn the ones in existence or anything, but the thought of a world where NEW books are no longer created, where kids don't wait in line for hours for the release of the next book in their favorite series or rush to the library/bookstore as soon as they finish one to gain the other, where people don't feel the pages in their hands and turn/fold/touch them til they're soft and brown, and where they can't smell a book to tell its age, but instead have a dead cold screen at their faces, is a depressing notion, and an unstoppable, confused sadness mixed with rage welled up inside of me. It was honestly a battle to keep tears from spilling down my cheek.
I was called to action. Yes, I have vowed to become a Keeper of the Books. And I hope many of you out there are with me, so that in my growing age I can join you at your houses and still see shelves full of your favorite and well-loved volumes.
It's funny because prior to class on Monday, I already had other new ideas spinning in my head from a whirlwind of a Sunday night. I've made a goal/challenge for myself: to not buy any clothing for myself during this year in Scotland. Following my thoughts from yesterday's blog, I just realized I was already becoming too wrapped up in creating for myself this new Scottish, postgraduate image. Not only do I not have money at the time to waste on frivolities of fashion, but once I do get money, they would still be a silly thing to spend it on (especially when there is so much delicious food to be eaten and so many great places to venture). If Scotland isn't fine with the Abi of the Cosby sweater, then it doesn't really matter anyways, because it's only a year that they have to deal with it. A second facet of this goal/challenge is, by the end of this year, since most of my clothing will have been well used/loved by me for years, I will cut myself from my attachments to them and donate them to a local thrift store, save my most cherished/necessary articles. This will let me lighten my shipping load on the return journey home, as well as giving me more room to tote the next part of my goal:
After Monday's class and the decision to be a Soldier for Physical Texts, I have decided that slowly and surely I must acquire any and all relevant/worthy/entertaining/classic texts which I can get my hands on, because even if I don't want to read them now and don't know when I will, I need to begin building my library to a greater extent so that in five years time, and longer, I will have a substantial testament to my dedication for the continued practice of reading books with paper pages.

Where is the magic in a mother scrolling through digital images as she reads her child a bedtime story? and where is the excitement in simply downloading the latest release? and where is the adventure in browsing through an electronically-produced list rather than foraging through stacks and stacks of colorful spines all aligned and waiting to be pulled off their shelves?

Also I went to Adoration on this feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus and ate cake twice.
Good day. Stirring day.