I wonder sometimes what it means when I say that I love to read?
Does it mean that I only want to be entertained by someone, and then discard them and their work without a word of thanks?
There are a number of authors that have influenced and inspired me over the years. People who have taught me things that I otherwise never would have known, or even thought to consider. Yet I never made an effort to thank them. Of course, many of them were long gone even before my mother and father spent that night on the riverbank near Charlotte, North Carolina. However, there are others that I could have contacted and expressed my appreciation to at the time, yet they too are gone now.
I'm thinking about this because I'm completing one of my periodic re-readings of the essays of the physician and researcher Lewis Thomas, specifically: The Lives of a Cell, The Medusa and the Snail, and Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony. It occurred to me as I was reading that I didn't even know whether he was still alive; although I was pretty sure that I'd noted his passing many years ago. I checked online afterwards, and found that he died in 1993. That makes me sad.
It makes me sad because everywhere I look today, people are complaining and screaming about how awful everyone else is. Very few people want to think about the intrinsic beauty that can be found in a myriad of items all around them, including the people that they encounter in the course of their lives on a daily basis. So yeah, it makes me sad because I look at our own (yes, mine too) bad examples and cringe internally. It makes me sad because I remember how much hope I had growing up, how essays like those moved me and made me want to do whatever little part I could to help improve the world; and I have done some things, things that only I'll ever be aware of, but I wish that I had done more. Mostly though, it saddens me because I never took the five minutes to write to Mr. Thomas, or any of the others, to tell them how much they had moved, improved, and inspired me.
Too late now, but I'm sorry Mr. Thomas... ...and thanks for everything.
Does it mean that I only want to be entertained by someone, and then discard them and their work without a word of thanks?
There are a number of authors that have influenced and inspired me over the years. People who have taught me things that I otherwise never would have known, or even thought to consider. Yet I never made an effort to thank them. Of course, many of them were long gone even before my mother and father spent that night on the riverbank near Charlotte, North Carolina. However, there are others that I could have contacted and expressed my appreciation to at the time, yet they too are gone now.
I'm thinking about this because I'm completing one of my periodic re-readings of the essays of the physician and researcher Lewis Thomas, specifically: The Lives of a Cell, The Medusa and the Snail, and Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler's Ninth Symphony. It occurred to me as I was reading that I didn't even know whether he was still alive; although I was pretty sure that I'd noted his passing many years ago. I checked online afterwards, and found that he died in 1993. That makes me sad.
It makes me sad because everywhere I look today, people are complaining and screaming about how awful everyone else is. Very few people want to think about the intrinsic beauty that can be found in a myriad of items all around them, including the people that they encounter in the course of their lives on a daily basis. So yeah, it makes me sad because I look at our own (yes, mine too) bad examples and cringe internally. It makes me sad because I remember how much hope I had growing up, how essays like those moved me and made me want to do whatever little part I could to help improve the world; and I have done some things, things that only I'll ever be aware of, but I wish that I had done more. Mostly though, it saddens me because I never took the five minutes to write to Mr. Thomas, or any of the others, to tell them how much they had moved, improved, and inspired me.
Too late now, but I'm sorry Mr. Thomas... ...and thanks for everything.
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