Google has announced its plan to digitize every book, every tome, in the printing world. And somehow, this hasn’t disturbed me too much. Maybe this is because I really was never so much of a computer guy, a man whose life is dictated by the bytes and bits of the processor. My world is inhabited by people, and most importantly, books. Mind you, my books aren’t digitized, and I am thankful for that.
For if they were digitized, how on earth would I read them in those cold nights in the light of candles when the electricity forsook me to visit her mom at the power plant? How on earth would I feel the rustle of the pages, the swiftness of the passage of time as I rushed through the chapters? How could I leave a tome partially unread, and then rush back to it, guilty in that I forsook a friend? Books aren’t such pages bound in a hard cover, covered with publisher’s ink. They are living entities, the sentinels of their time, and the markers of eternity.
To digitize them would merely take away their allure, their mystery from them, and render them so very ordinary. And yet, when I say this, I have committed the most abominable blasphemy, the most heretical sacrilege. For books have been the harbingers of change. They have given hope where hopelessness reigned supreme. They have consoled the grieving when the heavens seemed unable to come to provide succour. They have infused souls with inhuman courage when the hearts of men sought to liberate themselves from the yokes of oppression and tyranny. And in this context, if one were to ask the books, they would shrug their shoulders, maybe straighten out some ruffled pages, and say as simply,
Our's not to make reply,Our's not to reason why,Our's but to do and die.
Those who have delivered change will not shun change. For it is in evolution that we better ourselves. Maybe it is the destiny of mankind. It is not for us to question as to why it is just so.
