Just A Thought ~ THE WONDER OF BOOKS

"Books.... permit us to interrogate the past with high accuracy; to tap the wisdom of our species; to understand the point of view of others, and not just those in power; to contemplate ~ with the best teachers ~ the insights, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, drawn from the entire planet and from all of our history. They allow people long dead to talk inside our heads. Books can accompany us everywhere. Books are patient when we are slow to understand, allow us to go over the hard parts as many times as we wish, and are never critical of our lapses. Books are a key to understanding the world and participating in a democratic society."

~ Carl Sagan, in The Demon-Haunted World ~

We have been taught to read without being helped to understand this fantastic ability, and so have just taken it for granted, and underestimated it. Our recognition of symbols we call alphabets, gives us access to endless information that makes our lives so very rich.

There is a story of a tribe who had no written language ~ something no humans had until relatively recently (four to five thousand years is not really a long time) ~ and while this was alright for most of the tribe, one man was deaf, and therefore had no access to the oral lore of his tribe; consequently, he was handicapped in such a way that deaf people today are not, as they can learn to read.

One of our problems today is that we have largely lost our sense of wonder and appreciation of things. It can be cultivated and regained, but only with understanding and effort.