No matter what the number — whether you live to be 25 or 55 or 95 — life’s way too short.
Indeed, time is our most precious resource, because it’s constantly diminishing.
No one thinks about this in their teens. Only a few may consider this prospect in their 20’s or 30’s. One begins pondering diminishing opportunities by their 40’s, and by the 50’s the prospect of mortality becomes very real. I’m not sure exactly how one views time in their 60’s or 70’s, and beyond. Let’s just say I hope to get there and write about it, someday.
There’s never enough time in the day, the week, the month, or the year to do all the things that interest us. Not enough time to learn to play a musical instrument, and then practice at it to get better. Not enough time to learn another foreign language. Not enough time to meet all the people we want to see. Not enough time to visit all the places we want to go. And certainly not enough time to consume all the fascinating books out there, on a variety of different subjects just waiting to be picked up and read — horizons potentially broadened and outlooks sometimes changed by the printed word.
Here and now, I sit inside a Barnes and Noble bookstore, in Fort Lauderdale. I find things peaceful here. Yet only steps away, there are probably 10,000 books I could pick up off the shelves right now, and be totally captivated. Somehow, I find this near infinity of knowledge depressing.
The limitation of time we all face requires that we make choices. Tough choices. I can’t possibly read all 10,000 of the books that might interest me. Hell, I’ve already got a backlog of six books sitting on my desk now, ready to be consumed. I love books. I adore them. Call it a lifelong love affair with knowledge with the mistress of the unknown on the side.
In college, an English professor once told me a story, which I’ve never forgotten. He had been a graduate student many years earlier. Once, he walked into the university library and found his graduate adviser sitting there at a desk alone, with tears swelling in his eyes. When asked, “what’s wrong,” the graduate adviser replied he was depressed that all the vast knowledge of the library was right here at his fingertips, yet — in his entire lifetime — he could barely consume maybe one-tenth of a percent, if that, of all the books contained in the library — not to mention the thousands of other books still be to written and read. Hence, 99.9 percent of all the great ideas and interesting stories contained upon those millions of pages would never be read.
Life is much like books. There are innumerable things to do, people to meet, places to go, things to enjoy, subjects to learn. Yet. we barely have time to scratch the surface of all the treasures available to us. I never understood the concept of being bored. How can anyone be bored with all that’s available to most? How can anyone be bored who has access to books, or music, or science, other means of expression? Sorry, but I can’t sympathize with boredom. I think people who are bored must just be boring.
To be more rudely precise, I don’t understand people who don’t like to read, or don’t read much. How can that be? Books can take us back in time, or forward in time. They can allow us to meet lots of interesting people. Books can take inside the White House, of any president. They can take us inside the locker room of the greatest sports teams. Books can take us to Africa, Antarctica, or outer space. They can even take us to imaginary places.
Todd Anderson approached me the other day. He’s the mastermind of “Poker Night in America,” the television show on which I’m working and my reason for being here in South Florida, right now. Todd conveyed that he’s reading a book on Lewis and Clark (the explorers) at the moment. That’s not a book I would normally associate with Todd. Then again, it’s precisely the kind of book I’d expect him to pick up and read — which is something completely new, and much like the topic of exploration it presumably chronicles, a journey to somewhere new.
A journey to somewhere new. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? I like that.
I consider myself ridiculously fortunate. I’m not burdened with poverty or oppression. Chances are, you’re probably lucky, too. Even with all of the world’s problems, we are the luckiest people in the history of our planet. We were born into a modern age, in a reasonably free society, with access to an infinity of ideas and information. What will define us as to who we are, and what we become, are the choices we make.
One of those many choices is a divine one, which is deciding which book to read next.